


Flowers From Ashes

by your_local_friendly_ghost



Series: Changing Tides [3]
Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: ;), A Thing For Man Tiddies, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blasphemy, Cuddling With Your Man As He Jerks Off But That's Not Sexual, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Frottage, Graphic Descriptions of Descriptions, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Joseph "My Dick Has Endured Ten Years Of Sexual Frustration" Oda, Language of Flowers, Lovers to Slightly-More-Lovers, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Praise Kink, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Resolved Sexual Tension, Scar Kissing, Sebastian "Horny on Main" Castellanos, Sequel to Author's Previous Work(s), Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, YES we can. we can. it’s not common but we can. and i have anyways so nothing can be done now., and ended up being 16 chapters and the chapter where they fuck being 12k words, anyways. enjoy your 14 chapters of vaguely sexual plotless narration with 2 chapters of big sexy., can you imagine that? a fic that's supposed to be smut but that you need to know lore to?, did you miss me?, for no other reason that i am unstoppable and uncontrollable, hello welcome to the fic that i told myself would be 5k of straight-up pwp, how much time i spent wondering if we could say “breasts” for a male?, i am out of control. i can tell you that., i am so out of fucking control! will you try to stop me? you can't!, i hope it is. i can enjoy a bit of blasphème and all these very sexy things., i'll put the few plots points that you'd need to have in mind in the notes of the fic, in the form of metaphors and literary devices, is it blasphemy?, just a bit. just a tad., listen do you KNOW how much time i spent looking for fucking synonyms for man tiddies?, me @ myself : yeah can i get uh the MUSHIEST MOST EMOTIONAL porn fic you got, me cocking my Hurt/Confort and PTSD tags gun @ these men: You Will Have To Earn That Dick Babes!, reading them is appreciated but not mandatory, still not acknowledging TEW2 and you cannot make me!, this takes place after the last fic of the serie which took place after the first one etc, yeah. that's why i was gone.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-25 22:25:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 55,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15650136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/your_local_friendly_ghost/pseuds/your_local_friendly_ghost
Summary: (or "Silene Viscaria  Summer")Third and Last Part of the Series "Changing Tides"They walked through, and out of hell. They have picked up the pieces of themselves and of the other, shattered on the black shores of their nightmares.They have found peace and a love tender and raw in the other's arms, on the other's lips.There is one question left suspended in the air — a promise, maybe... that they intend on keeping.[August 17, 2018 update: after a small, possibly unneeded mental breakdown, this fic underwent a bit of syntaxic revising. nothing was drastically changed, it was only made, hopefully, easier to read. thank you for your patience, and my deepest apologies to the first-ranks readers. please, enjoy.]





	1. Locker Rooms Horror Stories (Plumeria)

**Author's Note:**

> So we've made it. The third, final part of this damn series.  
> Before you begin reading, I wanted to thank my friends who have supported me as I stayed awake until 6AM to finish my chapter, especially one, who will recognize herself, who multiple times have come to hang out on my Google Doc and written "peepee" on my page. I think this is what real friends do
> 
> This fic is also dedicated to a particular comment on my last fic, that went as, and I quote : "don't you dare leaving with writing some simple handjobs, no, I demand dicks in butts and you better give it to me!!!". If you read this, and recognize yourself, to you I say, my dear : in this fic, you will find both.
> 
> Thank you to you too, dear reader, for even clicking on this. It's been a long trip, but we've made it. It's here now.
> 
> As for the plot points in the previous fics that need explaining :  
> \- Lily is still dead (baby angel I am sorry)  
> \- I made Myra a villain and a big one at that (I'm so sorry but it was pre-TEW2 and everyone had doubts about her. I had to do it to her.)  
> \- Juli is working on getting the fuck out of Mobius, goddess bless her etc.  
> \- Following Myra's plotline, Sebastian got rid of his wedding ring.  
> \- Selton and Dunn are characters I made up, they work at KCPD. Arthur Selton is from the air support division, a bit of a dumbass, and asks weird questions. Andrea Dunn helps with computing and data processing.
> 
> As always, as English is not my first language, if you see any glaring grammatical mistakes, do NOT hesitate to tell me. Please.
> 
> Anyways, I'll let you off the hook now. Go wild. Read well. Don't stay up too late.

          The rain outside is slow and hits the window with delicate fingers, almost as to not disturb the scene in the room. The atmosphere is a bit heavy, a bit hot and placid like a summer day before a thunderstorm. Sebastian and Joseph are lying the bed, face to face, a few inches apart, too warm to get into a sweaty embrace. Sebastian’s fingers brush Joseph’s cheek with the gentleness of a feather, from time to time pushing a black lock back behind his ear, as Joseph hums in contentment and closes his eyes.  
  
“Hey,” Sebastian whispers, “what happened next?”  
  
Joseph exhales slowly, trying to gather his thoughts to continue his story.  
  
“I entered middle school,” Joseph murmurs. “That was one hell of a change. I was terrified.”  
  
Sebastian crawls closer to his lover, pushing his forehead against Joseph’s.  
  
“Yeah?” he encourages.  
“Our school took care of kids aged eleven to eighteen, and I kept getting crushes on every single guy who was even a bit nice to me.”  
  
Sebastian chuckles and gives Joseph a slight nudge to encourage him.  
  
“There were the football players, the baseball players, the otherwise athletic… I didn’t fit with them, of course. I was more of a ‘books and violin’ type of kid.”  
“You played the violin?”  
“Yes, on my mother’s persuasion. I began quite early. I don’t think I can even play  the simplest of melodies anymore.”  
  
The rain had stopped. Sebastian asks Joseph to wait for him just a second as he goes to open the window. A gush of fresh air comes into the room, sweeping away all of the heavy and humid atmosphere. Joseph pulls the blanket over his body, and Sebastian slips underneath.  
  
“Anyway,” Joseph continues. The sudden cold wind has woken him up, and he now has his eyes open and fixated on Sebastian’s mouth. “Time passed, I kept being some kind of nerd.”  
  
Sebastian laughs and Joseph curls up against him.  
  
“I remember puberty being the last thing I wanted to go through. I remember watching changes happening to my body and think ‘oh no’... but then I would see these same changes happen to the boys I would share the locker room before gym class with and think ‘...okay yes’.”  
  
Sebastian blurts out a laugh and loops his arms around Joseph’s body.  
  
“God, yeah, okay, I know what you mean,” he chuckles as he runs his fingers through Joseph’s thick black hair.  
“Yeah?”  
“Yeah. I remembering mentally comparing myself to my classmates and at that point, I didn’t know if it was jealousy or appreciation…”  
  
Joseph chortles as he buries his nose in the crook of the other man’s neck.  
  
“What else?” Sebastian invites him to continue.  
“Ah… I remember being heavily into Star Wars when it came out… I also remember being into a guy who was into Star Wars. I remember I wanted to learn every little piece of trivia to impress him.”  
  
Sebastian laughs softly against Joseph’s temple.  
  
“Hell, I even bought him a Star Wars t-shirt once.”  
“Oh my God… Seriously?” Sebastian giggles.  
“Yeah… I was head over heels for him… Oh God,” Joseph scoffs, sounding almost disappointed at himself, “this is almost not even funny.”  
“I find it pretty entertaining,” Sebastian says with a  grin. “What happened next?”  
“Well,” Joseph continues, visibly eager to share, “the day I thought I would approach him to give him the t-shirt as a present, I learned he was a complete douchebag.”  
“Oh no!”  
“Yeah.”  
“So what did you do with the tee?”  
“I kept it!” Joseph declares. “I kept it and wore it. It was a bit too big for me, but I thought I’d grow into it.”  
“Did you?” Sebastian asks, more interested in hearing Joseph’s voice than in the story.

“Yes, in fact. Even when I wasn’t that much into Star Wars, I kept wearing it. It was a token of my affection to myself, I guess, and a reminder to try not to fall in love with assholes,” Joseph finishes with a laugh.  
  
Sebastian imitates him.  
  
“Well you failed on the last one, then,” he adds, jokingly self-deprecating.  
  
“You’re not an asshole,” Joseph disapproves firmly. “Not really,” he adds, softer. “Not at heart. You have an asshole exterior and a gentle interior.”  
  
“I’m like a porcupine,” Sebastian chuckles.  
“Exactly,” Joseph says as he wiggles to get even closer to his lover’s body.  
  
Sebastian starts running his hand over the plane of Joseph’s back, massaging his shoulder blades with his palm.  
  
“What about you?” the younger man asks against the skin of Sebastian’s neck. “How was middle school?”  
“Oof,” Sebastian jocularly huffs, ”well it… um… was interesting.”  
“Tell me more,” Joseph whispers.  
“Hmm… well, I remember being extremely jealous of a particular couple back in, what, seventh grade or so…” Sebastian looks down at Joseph who, from his comfortable nook, is staring at him with big brown eyes. “Every time I would see that guy with his girlfriend, I felt incredibly jealous and angry… I would think ‘god, I wish that girl was my girlfriend, god, I wish’... But then they broke up, and when I thought I could have my chance with the girl now, I realized I absolutely wasn’t attracted to her.”  
  
Joseph chuckles against Sebastian’s skin.  
  
“What had been happening,” Sebastian continues, “is that I had been jealous of that guy’s attention for all the time they were together because I was into him!” He finishes with a throaty laugh that Joseph’s imitates.  
“Oh god,” Joseph giggles.  
“Yeah, I was a dumbass,” Sebastian sighs fondly at the memory.  
  
He looks down at Joseph and finds again these two shining brown eyes looking at him, impatient and curious.  
  
“Um… I remember the guys of the sports team I was part of — this was after I’ve had already dated a few people — being wary of me… They would most of the time observe some distance with me. They seemed always on edge because they didn’t know if I was after them, their ‘bros’ or their girl.”  
  
Joseph titters behind his teeth before his laughter comes out in a burst and he starts guffawing in the crook of Sebastian’s neck.  
  
“Oh God, seriously?”  
“Yeah… and I wasn’t even into any of these people!”  
  
Joseph keeps laughing and laughing until, with the help of Sebastian’s soothing hand rubbing his back, he manages to control himself back to a soft chuckle.  
He sighs deeply, trying to regain some sort of composure.  
  
“Was that really that funny?” Sebastian asks with a fond smile.  
“Sorry,” Joseph exhales slowly, “it’s just… the way you said it. You sounded so shocked and outraged… I found it hilarious.”  
  
Sebastian chuckles and pulls Joseph closer. Making him laugh, he thinks, seems to be one of the best things he could ever have done.  
_Joseph’s laugh_ , he thinks. _Joseph’s laugh_ .  
Music to his ears and honey for his heart. It’s almost surreal hearing Joseph laugh after everything they’ve been through… And even before that, the man wouldn’t laugh much, his stern facade seemingly hiding any form of genuine and loud amusement behind heavy walls.  
He’d seen him smile, Sebastian thinks, multiple times, at that. Smile at him with these kind, loving eyes.  
And he didn’t notice a damn thing.  
_I was still a dumbass._  
   
  
          The room is getting really cold. Sebastian entangles himself from Joseph’s loving limbs and goes up to the window.  
The town is calm, cleansed by the rain. The tar is black and shining under the city’s lights.  
Sebastian pushes the window shut.  
  
When he walks back to Joseph, the younger man seems to have fallen in a dizzy half-sleep, his eyes fluttering open and close as he struggles to stay awake.  
Sebastian slides back under the heavy blanket, nestling himself comfortably on his back, throwing an arm over Joseph’s head to allow him to curls up against him – and he does, with a tired hum.  
Sebastian switches off the nightstand lamp which had been cradling them in its golden halo since the beginning of the evening, leaving them in a moonlight-laced silver light.  
  
“Hey,” Joseph calls him in a murmur. “What do you think would have happened if we had stayed only friends?”  
  
Sebastian shrugs. He never really thought about it, becoming lovers having started to look, in his eyes, like the logical and inevitable step their friendship would have taken anyway.  
  
“I’m not sure. Probably not much,” he adds, considering what their relationship was before becoming what it is now, the intimacy, the closeness, the platonic attraction which pulled them in the other’s arms like magnets they developed as an aftermath of having feared for the other’s life. “Maybe we were bound to become lovers,” he tells Joseph, this thought being the one always in his mind.  
  
He looks at Joseph, who seems lost in thoughts, staring at a blank spot ahead.  
  
“Would it have been enough for you if we never did?” Sebastian asks softly.  
  
Joseph pushes himself harder against Sebastian’s side, allowing the older man to hook his arm around his shoulders.  
  
“More than enough.”

 

 


	2. Porcelain Fists (Love Lies Bleeding, Snowdrop, Straw)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It sticks to their skin like dried blood that refuses to come off.

          It’s a bad day. It’s a bad fucking day.  
When Sebastian woke up, he found Joseph out of his arms, wide awake, eyes wide open, red, cradled in a dark hue, sitting with his legs bent and knees pulled to his chest.  
Sebastian extended an arm to touch him, gently, slowly, careful not to scare him, and Joseph jumped at the brush of his fingers.  
He looked at Sebastian, and Sebastian knew it was a bad day.  
Joseph was terrified.  
Sebastian lowered his arm, put it out of Joseph’s small personal bubble. He looked at him. Joseph looked away. “Sorry,” he said. His voice was small, dry, scared. “It’s fine,” Sebastian said.  
It really wasn’t.  
  
  
“How many hours did you sleep?” Sebastian asked as Joseph boiled water for the tea.  
  
Joseph didn’t look at him and stared at the water.  
  
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Felt like a few minutes.”  
  
He turned the burner off.  
  
“A few minutes too much.”  
  
  
          Joseph wouldn’t look at the knife. He didn’t butter his toast. Didn’t put nori on it. In the end, he didn’t have a toast at all.  
He was pale. His eyes were avoidant.  
“Sorry,” he would say, “sorry”, and Sebastian to reply every time “it’s fine, it’s fine”.  
  
  
          Sebastian feels guilty. Joseph trembles, jumps at the smallest sound. His breathing is labored, his movement stiff. Joseph had, supposedly, one hell of a night, and Sebastian slept like a cherub.  
  
“What can I do to help you?” he asks.  
  
Joseph looks at him for the first time in the day.  
  
“... I don’t know,” he answers.  
  
  
          Joseph blenches at the sound of a door opening, drops his mug, and blenches at the sound it makes when it hits the ground and goes up to pieces.  
He swears under his breath and crouches to pick the pieces up. Sebastian, who was anxiously following him, immediately joins him.  
  
“Here, let me help,” he says.  
“I’m fine, Sebastian,” Joseph tries to protest, pushing his voice to be firm despite his obvious discomfort — it still quivers and shakes, ghostly and dry — but Sebastian doesn’t obey. Joseph lets go.  
  
Twenty fingers are picking and plucking from the sea of shards, gathering all of the pieces in a small pile in an awkward silence.  
Suddenly, breaking the tense quietude, there is the clear sound of porcelain scraping the ground, a sharp inhale, a short muffled cry of pain, and Joseph is curling back on himself as he quickly draws his left arm back to his chest.  
Sebastian promptly looks up from what is left of the mug to direct his attention on his partner and sees, pearling on the exposed skin of his wrist, a little red dot ; and that dot grows, and grows, suddenly runs on Joseph’s skin leaving a red trail, and splashes on the ground.  
  
“Oh no,” Sebastian hears Joseph huffing, his voice already weak breaking harder, “no no no no no…”  
  
Sebastian observes Joseph lifting his arm to his face, locking his eyes on the wound — and his eyes, Sebastian sees, they widen, and one twitches, and it looks like pure, unfiltered fear.  
  
“Joseph,” Sebastian calls firmly, hoping his voice will pull Joseph out of his trance, “Joseph, look at me!”  
  
And Joseph does. His eyes start to water, his lips shake as much as his arm, and his pupils are blown wide in terror.  
  
“No, no no,” he huffs, “not today, not today…”  
  
Sebastian jumps on his feet and grabs Joseph’s other arm.  
  
“Come with me,” he tells him, “come with me.”  
  
Joseph lets himself be guided, seemingly in shock, shoulders stiff and eyes absent.  
_What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on?_ __  
Sebastian hasn’t seen Joseph like that in weeks. Hell, maybe months.  
It’s the first time in so long that he acts like that.  
He would do it often in the first few weeks of being fresh out of STEM, when the wounds on their minds were still so raw they would leak thick blood, and so would Sebastian — both of them with their skin turned inside out for every single drop of blood they would see to pour salt on, reminding them crudely of the hell they’ve been through,  
but now?  
_It’s been months,_ Sebastian thinks. Joseph is supposed to feel better. How long will this whole thing torture him still?  
  
Sebastian had guided Joseph up to the locker room and gently pushed him to sit on one of the benches.  
  
“Stay here,” he orders in a voice as soft as possible, which he notices still betrays his deep unsettlement, “and try to relax. I’m taking care of you.”  
  
“ _I’m taking care of you_ ”, Sebastian realizes he inadvertently said instead of “taking care of the wound”. But, he thinks, it suits his mindset at that particular moment. The wound is nothing. All that matters is the freaked out Joseph which hasn’t stopped shaking since they entered the room.  
  
Sebastian’s hand roams in the medicine cabinet, grabbing disinfectant, cotton, and bandages as the man keeps throwing glances at his terrified lover.  
He comes back to him in an instant, sitting next to him, close enough so their bodies touch, positioning himself as an anchor for Joseph to rely on to try to relax as he pours disinfectant on a small piece of cotton.  
It seems to be working.  
Joseph’s whole figure starts to slowly ease off, his shoulders falling back into their natural position, his tense grimace disappearing to let a neutral, if still a little worried, look settle on his face. The deep line of fear between his eyebrows weakens, his posture loosens, and he lets out a deep breath.  
  
“Good,” Sebastian whispers as he gently takes hold of Joseph’s arm. “Good…”  
  
Joseph lets his arm get slack in Sebastian’s care, muscles relaxing, his fingers stretching. Sebastian takes gentler hold of the limb, cradling it in the palm of one hand and applying the wet cotton to the wound with the other.  
Now, the cut is not even a few millimeters deep, and long like the front of a teenager’s nail — in a matter of seconds, it is clean, and Sebastian can tape a tiny bandage onto it.  
  
“There,” Sebastian lets out in a soothing voice, “you’re all good now.”  
  
He looks at Joseph. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Joseph staring at his own arm, gaze blank, eyes wide as if in trance. Sebastian gently calls his name as he loops an arm around his shoulders. Joseph seems to snap out of stupor and a short, small tear runs down his cheek and disappears into the fabric of his tie.  
  
“Oh god,” he blurts out as if waking up abruptly. “Okay. Okay. I’m… Um.” He mutters, visibly confused.  
“Hey, you’re fine,” Sebastian reassures him in a soothing voice. “You’re fine.”  
  
Joseph takes a deep breath and lets out a long sigh.  
  
“I… I don’t know. I don’t feel quite fine.”  
  
Sebastian brings the disinfectant and bag of cotton back into the cabinet, then trots back to Joseph’s side.  
  
“What happened, Joe? You looked mortified this morning. Tell me. Please,” he adds, a little lower.  
  
Joseph turns to him.  
  
“I… I don’t really know. I had a weird dream — and not the kind of good weird dream.”  
“Yeah?” Sebastian encourages him, hoping he can coax a bit more than that out of his lover.  
“I dreamed I was… suffocating. I was overcome with guilt and pain, and I couldn’t breathe, and I was back in that church telling you about wanting to kill myself —”  
  
Joseph cuts short as he runs out of breath, and his next inhalation is sharp and labored, as if he was breathing in nails — Sebastian hates the mental image it gives him, and he pulls Joseph closer.  
  
“I don’t know. Everything was terrible. Blood was abundant, and I didn’t know if it was mine or someone else’s — and I can’t seem to decide which one would have been worse.”  
  
Joseph covers the nursed wound on his arm with his gloved hand.  
  
“I just… I don’t know. I don’t know. I hate feeling that way. I’m not supposed to feel that way anymore,” he mutters, and Sebastian senses him on the verge of another breakdown — or tears.  
“Hey,” Sebastian calls him in a tender voice, “you’re gonna be okay. You’ll make it through the day, then I’ll take us home, and you’ll be able to relax.”  
“Okay…”  
  
Joseph lets out a long, long sigh.  
  
“I hate feeling that way. God, I feel as if I’ve said that dozens of times, but… It always comes back. The feeling always come back,” he says, his voice thick, veiled with anger and fear, “it always comes back at the worst possible time. It makes me feel so vulnerable. Like a kid. I hate that… I hate it. I hate it.”  
  
Sebastian cuts him short by putting his hands on each of Joseph’s cheeks, feeling how hot with anger they are in the curve of his palms, and gently pulls his lover’s face to his. Joseph’s eyes open wide in a shock that isn’t of terror or anger, and Sebastian can see, as Joseph stares into his own irises, how his pupils dilate in the middle of a sea of brown dusted with gold.  
  
“Joseph,” Sebastian calls in a deep, calm voice, “you’re gonna be okay. I know you’re still struggling, we both are in different ways, and are probably going to for a while still.”  
  
Sebastian moves one of his hand to the back of Joseph’s neck to allow his thumb to rub against the younger man’s cheek. Joseph’s lids close softly in contentment.  
  
“... But I’m here for you. I’ll take care of you, I’ll be your support if you need me. I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll always help you, baby.”  
  
Joseph’s eyes snap open and he looks straight into Sebastian’s eyes, gaze bewildered and astonished, through which pierces a new-found excitement and fondness.  
  
“What did you call me?” he asks, voice roused and enamored.  
  
Sebastian doesn’t respond right away — his brows furrow and his mouth falls slightly open as he tries to remember. It just slipped past his lips, he was barely conscious of it…  
  
“... ‘Baby’? I called you ‘baby’...”  
  
Joseph doesn’t say anything and just stares at him with those shining eyes.  
  
“... Was that bad? I didn’t really pay attention to it. If you want me to try to avoid calling you that in the future, I can—”  
“No,” Joseph cuts him short, pushing himself against Sebastian. “No, no, no. Call me baby again. Call me other cute names. I want to hear you say them.”  
  
Sebastian stares at Joseph for a few seconds, taking the information in, looking a bit baffled and confounded with an eyebrow raised.  
Joseph looks at him through half-lidded eyes, full of adoring anticipation, waiting.  
Sebastian smiles fondly as he thinks and pushes his forehead to Joseph’s.  
  
“Baby,” he repeats, cherishing and delighted. “Baby, babe, sweetheart, darling, dear, love…”  
  
Joseph closes his eyes at the last name and Sebastian sees him shiver in bliss, a wide smile painting light on his face.  
  
“Do you like that?” Sebastian asks, tender and low. “Do you like when I call you ‘love’?”  
“Yeah,” Joseph breathes, mouth so close to Sebastian’s that the man can feel the words on his lips.  
“Love,” Sebastian rehearses, “love, love, you are my love,” he sing-songs as Joseph buries his face in the crook of his neck to moan.  
  
Sebastian laughs as Joseph’s muffled voice tickles his skin.  
  
“Alright,” he chuckles. “You seem better. Let’s get back to work before someone walks in on us like that.”  
  
Joseph reluctantly pulls himself out of the comfortable nook of his lover’s neck. Sebastian can see his shining brown eyes and that loving, gentle smile drawing his lips in an alluring curve. Hands still on Joseph’s cheeks, Sebastian gently leans forward, and as his partner’s eyes close once more to capture the moment, Sebastian capture Joseph’s lips with his own.  
  
They stay a few seconds like that, lips locked in the loosest of locks, almost lazy, or shy, Joseph’s hands coming to rest on each side of Sebastian’s neck.  
They break apart rapidly but happy with a small, slightly wet sound, Joseph’s gaze still pinned on Sebastian’s lips as if they were the most beautiful thing in the world — and for him, at this moment, they were.

 

 


	3. A Helping Hand (Coral Rose, Balsamine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joseph slips up and it's a whole new world that opens under their feet, making them stumble and trip in something they didn't expect to ever come across... well, they probably did at some point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to my chapter, please do step in the vaguely sexual, yet extremely embarrassing, side of things.

           Exhaustion caught up on Joseph during the afternoon — Sebastian watched him become less and less focused, starting to fidget in his chair. Multiple times, he saw the younger man’s head drop forward in fatigue, pulled back straight with a sudden movement every time it threatened to have Joseph drop asleep on his desk.  
  
Sebastian drove them back to their shared apartment. In the car, cradled by the warm evening light diffusing in the passenger compartment like incense, Joseph fell asleep. He woke up when Sebastian gently shook his shoulder as he parked in front of the building.  
  
“Wake up, love. Let’s get you something to eat so you can go to sleep soon,” Sebastian says under his voice as he helps Joseph untangle his body from the seat belt.  
  
Joseph groans and wiggles his arms around to get out of the strap’s trap. Sebastian encourages him a few more times, leaning over him to open his door. Joseph gets out of the car, unstable on his legs and soundly grunting.  
  
“I know, I know,” Sebastian chuckles as he closes his own door behind him.  
  
  
With Joseph weighing against his shoulder, grumbling in exhaustion, Sebastian fumbles with the lock of their shared apartment as his other arm desperately tries to hold Joseph approximately upright so he doesn’t fall face-first onto the door.  
Sebastian manages to slide his arm in the opening to switch the lights off before Joseph stumbles into the hallway, almost knocking over the coat hanger.  
  
“Okay, okay,” Sebastian calls after him as he pushes the door closed with his hip, “let me at least discard you from your jacket.”  
  
Joseph leans back against the wall with another loud groan of frustration and exhaustion. Sebastian walks up to him with a small, low, affectionate laugh.  
  
“I get you, love, I get you,” he whispers as he undoes the button of Joseph’s coat, smirking proudly as he sees his partner’s blushing at his pet name.  
  
Sebastian gently pushes Joseph on the side to slide the heavy fabric off his shoulders.  
  
“There you go,” he whispers as Joseph wiggles his arms out of the sleeves. “Now you can go collapse somewhere.”  
  
And Joseph does. He falters into the living room and crashes down, face first, onto the couch.  
  
“I’m taking care of dinner,” Sebastian announces.  
  
Joseph answers with a groan muffled by the cushion.  


  
          Joseph looks pissed, Sebastian can’t help but think.  
His brows are subtly furrowed in a way which gives him this slight angry, bitter expression. His lips are pressed tightly together as if he had eaten something sour, and his gaze, cradled in deep dark circles, looks annoyed as much as exhausted. His hands, lying flat and hard on top of the blanket, finish his harsh look.  
  
“... Are you okay?” Sebastian asks, gently crawling closer to his side. It had been a handful of minutes since they had slipped under the heavy blanket, and Sebastian had hoped that Joseph would have relaxed by now.  
  
Joseph lets out a long, sour sigh.  
  
“Not really. I’m exhausted, my body feels as stiff as a trunk, and my head hurts. I just want to jack off and then sleep.”  
  
Sebastian blinks in surprise, his brows jumping to the middle of his forehead in confusion.  
Joseph doesn’t seem to have yet realized what he just said — his face is still painted with that same weary and acerb expression.  
Sebastian’s wide eyes are stuck to Joseph’s face, waiting for him to react to his own words.  
_Hum, what the fuck?_ Sebastian thinks. _What the fuck?_ __  
He’s frozen in shock. Never, _ever_ , had he thought he would hear something like that coming from Joseph’s mouth. His partner! His partner, with who he had been working for a decade now, and who he barely had ever heard swearing! His strict, stern, rigid-faced partner, just blurted out about wanting to jack off!  
_Absolutely unbelievable. Am I actually awake?_  
As Sebastian’s mind shaked these thoughts in his skull like lettuce in a salad spinner, Joseph finally realized his past few words.  
When Sebastian focuses on him once more, he sees Joseph’s face frozen in the same shock he just felt, brown eyes open wide, eyebrows raised in pure stupefaction.  
  
“I. I, uh…” Joseph stutters, almost stunned by his own words.  
  
Joseph looks awkwardly at his hands on the cover, then at the window.  
Sebastian imitates him, swimming in the same thick and disagreeable discomfort, glancing at the door, then at their feet.  
  
“So, um…” Sebastian begins.  
“I, um…” Joseph adds.  
  
_Don’t you love awkward moments like that?_ Sebastian thinks. _I love awkward moments like that._ __  
  
“Do you… want me to get out? I can wait ‘til you’re done in the living room, or something…” he suggests.  
“No,” Joseph stops him abruptly, “you don’t have to leave. I just… I said that without thinking. Wasn’t really serious about it,” he tries to dodge.  
“I mean,” Sebastian begins, “if you really want to, um, release some pressure, I mean, I can go outside and wait—”  
“I said you didn’t have to,” Joseph cuts him off. “Listen, let’s forget about it, okay? Forget what I said. That, hum, that can wait for another time.”  
  
Sebastian rolls on his stomach to watch Joseph from a higher spot, and starts wondering — because thinking is, of course, the first logical thing to do when your partner of ten years and lover of a few months tell you he wants to jerk off — _when was the last time Joseph effectively got to take care of himself in that way?_  
Sebastian chuckles at the way he twisted the sentence in his mind to avoid sounding too vulgar to his own thoughts.  
  
“Why are you laughing?” Joseph huffs, sounding almost offended.  
“Nothing,” Sebastian replies, “nothing.”  
  
Joseph presses the back of his head harder into his pillow, staring at the ceiling. Now, he looks more embarrassed than bitter.

Sebastian observes him, how his jaw clenches as a few curse words fly discreetly under his teeth and he is heard mumbling a very quiet “ _this is really not the right time_ ”.

Joseph flips on one side, then on the other, seemingly trying to shake his want by rolling around. Sebastian can’t help but smirk fondly. When their eyes met, Joseph jerks back on his backside in an almost bashful attempt to hide what Sebastian is _sure_ is blushing.

 

“Listen, this— this is ridiculous, I’ll just sleep it off, okay? This is so incredibly stupid. It will pass.” Joseph rambles.  

 

Sebastian watches Joseph rearrange the heavy blanket over his crotch. His legs twitch and cross in a desperate attempt to hide what Sebastian can guess is a boner.

_Was it there before..? Did he just pop it from our discussion?!_

Sebastian’s mind is running 70mph in the quiet room, bumping into the furniture and crashing against the walls.

 _Oh_ , he like this. He likes this way more than he’s supposed, or even _allowed_ to.

Steadying himself back on his side, close to his partner’s stiff frame, Sebastian catches Joseph’s anxious glance from behind the thick arms of his glasses.

Sebastian both likes and wonders about Joseph’s sudden shyness. During the ten years they’ve known each other, the man has let him bathe his naked, exhausted body, let him dress him up as he was almost unconscious from a fall, and reciprocated, so what is making him so bashful now?

 _It’s the dick, dumbass. It’s the_ dick factor _of the equation._

Sebastian mentally slaps himself.

Of course it is. Of course. This had been the entire point for half an hour.

It seems so eerily foreign and weird that it had totally flown over Sebastian’s head, as evident as it is.

Sebastian manages to gather enough courage, through this blinding fog of desire and, maybe, unadmitted fear, to form his first sentence in what feels like an eternity.

 

“You know, I wouldn’t mind if you just… did it there, now…”

 

Joseph disengages himself from under Sebastian’s weight to look at him with these incredulous, quizzical, and unconvinced eyes. Sebastian holds his gaze with his own, trying to look as sincere as possible — fighting his whole mind not to crack up a joke to light up the atmosphere.

Joseph’s eyebrows lower, his gaze change as he realizes Sebastian is not joking in the slightest.

 

“You… You’re serious?” he asks, his voice so low Sebastian almost didn’t hear it.

“Yeah,” Sebastian answers in the same tone.

“... You mean… Right now?”

“Yeah.”

“But… aren’t you going to be… I mean…”

“I’ll close my eyes,” Sebastian breathes, Joseph’s stunned eyes welcoming his words, humming in the back of his mind an unavowed '. _.. but I wish I didn’t have to._ '

 

Sebastian’s throat feels a bit tight, and his chest a bit warm. He’s watching himself walking the tightrope between their old “purely platonic, just a couple of guys being dudes” dynamic and the new, burgeoning flame of something singing like desire that is getting harder and harder to ignore.

He sees the same struggle flashing over Joseph’s face, almost too furtive to be spotted.

  
Joseph looks at him for a few more seconds, scanning his face for any clue that this is a weird prank. Sebastian sees his pupils dilate and shrink in the same way they do when searching for traces on crime scenes.  
Finally, Joseph looks away and lets out a long, long sigh.  
  
“Fine. Okay. You win,” he huffs, trying to sound detached, but his sigh vibrates with relief and a poorly-concealed hint of something almost a bit… randy.

“I’m doing this for you,” Sebastian chuckles, playing into his little game, as Joseph repositionates himself under his weight like they were before, “you need this to relax after today.”  
“I could just sleep and have a bubble bath tomorrow, you know,” Joseph says as he covers his face with one hand, visibly trying to wipe off the embarrassment off his features like paint off skin.  
  
_Yeah, but that wouldn’t be as fun,_ Sebastian thinks.  
_Wait,_ ** _what?!_** he catches himself immediately responding to his thoughts.  
What the hell is going on in his brain?  
Since the moment Joseph slipped about want to masturbate, Sebastian’s thoughts had been going in all directions, but always circling around the same idea like moths around a light.  
It’s so foreign, he thinks, it’s so weird and new.  
This is a facet of Joseph he had never imagined to come across one day, except maybe in jokes around a beer or too many glasses of wine.  
Since the moment they became a couple, sexual intimacy had been a thought lingering in the back of his mind — would they ever do this? would they ever do that? would their relationship ever evolve into something physical? — and now Joseph was getting ready to jack off, lying a few inches away from him.

  
_Now that I think of it_ , his thoughts ring at his ear, _I’ve never seen Joseph as a sexual being._  
Of course he hasn’t. They had been nothing than friends for almost a decade, and this sudden change of pace is a lot to take in.  
He has never seen Joseph take some time for himself in _that way_ , he thinks. He has never seen him lock himself in the bathroom for a shower that took a little too long, never caught him in the act.  
_Has Joseph even_ once _jerked off while we lived together?_  
It doesn’t really matter, he thinks now.  
Because Joseph is waiting for him to close his eyes, glancing at him still embarrassed.  
If he had never jerked off while they were together, now is the time he’s going to.  
Sebastian nestles himself comfortably against Joseph’s pillow, pulling the blanket on himself, bending his arm under his head to stay in the way of Joseph’s endeavors.  
  
“Don’t. Look.” Joseph articulates as he holds Sebastian’s gaze to make him promise.  
“Swear I won’t,” Sebastian replies, and he closes his eyes, nesting his face in the crook of Joseph’s neck.  
  
_“Oh god, here we go,_ ” he can hear Joseph says, and it’s followed by the sound of Joseph’s pants being pulled.  
_Oh god, here we go_ , he thinks.  
  
Bodies pressed together, Sebastian feels Joseph wiggle out of his clothes. Under his lips, he feels his partner’s pulse go faster.  
Sebastian’s senses feel… heightened. His lips are more sensitive to the pulse knocking under Joseph’s flesh, his skin seems to feel the warmth emanating from Joseph’s — is he blushing? It feels like he’s blushing — and his ears capture every single little noise Joseph makes.  
Sebastian can make out the sound of Joseph’s hands pulling his underwear down, a shaking breath accompanying it, and Sebastian can imagine Joseph’s hands sliding between his thighs and taking hold of his cock.  
_Oh my god, it’s there. It’s now._  
Sebastian takes a low, but deep breath, trying not to show his… what is it? Is it embarrassment? Is it discomfort? Is it… excitation?  
_We don’t think about that. We focus on Joseph._  
And he does.

  
He hears Joseph’s breathing getting louder, then lower, he feels his pulse against his lips getting faster and faster.  
Everything was going to be fine, he had thought, it would be over quickly and without too much embarrassment, but there is one little thing he had forgotten about.  
The noises.  
_These_ noises.

  
The sound of skin against skin, of Joseph’s palm against his cock, it really, really doesn’t help Sebastian wild and vivid imagination.  
_Focus, Sebastian, focus on his breathing, focus on his heartbeat, focus on_ **_anything_ ** _but that sound, Castellanos, be strong._  
He tries to focus on Joseph’s breathing, and it’s ragged, labored, and faltered by small moans that Sebastian knows Joseph tries to keep as low as possible, and _god, this is probably the worst and best experience of my life,_ he thinks.  
Joseph’s moans get a little louder, and from time to time a sharp, hushed “oh, fuck” slips from his lips, and it’s terribly, _terribly_ arousing.  
Joseph’s legs twitch and jolt as his breathing gets louder, and Sebastian can feel him throwing his head back, pushing harder onto the pillow as more curses spill from his mouth.  
_“Oh fuck”, yeah, you said it Joseph_ , Sebastian thinks as he nuzzles his nose against the exposed skin of Joseph’s neck, and he tries very, very hard to keep his hands to himself — this is not how it was supposed to go, he thinks, _this is not how it was supposed to go, oh God._  
Joseph’s heartbeat burns Sebastian’s lips, his muffled voice stirs the blood in the general area of his crotch, and Sebastian thinks he’s the one going to cum when Joseph lets out a sharp, loud, pleasured whine — and with that, his whole body tenses, and his moaning stops.  
_Oh,_ Sebastian thinks.  
_Oh._  
  
Joseph’s breathing is not heard anymore.  
Sebastian feels his partner’s body relaxes under him, melting onto the mattress. His breathing, which had been suspended in time, freezing the clock, stopping Time — and Sebastian’s heart, he’s pretty sure — is finally let out in a long, low, shaky sigh. Sebastian thinks he hears a very faint, but honest “oh, fuck…”, but at this point, he’s not sure of anything anymore.  
Joseph’s heartbeat is slowing down with each passing second, his breathing returning to a normal rhythm.  
Sebastian is pretty sure Joseph still has his hand around his cock, but he’s not opening his eyes to check.  
After all these emotions, it would probably kill him, he thinks.  
  
Time is walking the Earth again. The clock is the loudest of the room. Outside, the night is noisy.  
_Holy fuck_ , Sebastian thinks. _Holy fuck._  
  
“Seb…” Joseph’s voice pierces the veil of this unreal moment.  
“Yeah?” Sebastian answers, his voice croaky from shock.  
“... the tissue box is on your side. Could you, _without looking_ , grab it for me?”  
  
Sebastian needs a few seconds to fully comprehend the request, his mind still full of Joseph’s moans and groans.  
  
“Uh… Oh, yeah, sure!” he replies, forcing himself to sound as relaxed as possible.  
  
He untangles himself from the warmth of Joseph’s side and rolls on his. He opens his eyes as he turns his back to Joseph, staring at the nightstand without seeing it, black dots dancing in front of his eyes as they struggle to get used to the penumbra. When the room takes back its normal form, Sebastian extends an arm to grab the box.  
_“It’s just normal,_ ” he forces himself to think, trying to get back from the high he just experienced just listening to Joseph jack off, “ _it’s normal, he just needs to wipe the cum off his skin. No big deal._ ”  
Very big deal, Sebastian minds yells at him as he closes his eyes and turns back on his side, very big fucking deal. He just had his lover — partner of ten years, _partner_ of a few months — stimulate his own genitalia for the purpose of sexual pleasure just next to him, nestled against his side, and moaning just over his head. It’s surreal, dreamlike, absurd, and Sebastian loved every second of it.  
He places the tissue box on what he thinks is Joseph’s chest.  
  
“Thank you,” Joseph says, barely a whisper.  
“No problem,” he answers, still stunned.  
  
The sound of Joseph wiping cum off his own skin makes Sebastian want to run to the bathroom and furiously jerk off.  
_It’s unreal_ , he thinks, the same thoughts running in circle in his head like horses driven mad by the heat, _it’s unbelievable, it’s, it’s…_  
_It’s extremely hot._  
  
“Okay,” Joseph’s voice cuts his train of thought, “you can open your eyes now.”  
  
Sebastian obeys. While he was busy being astonished by what just happened, Joseph had pulled his clothes back on and thrown the used tissues in the bin.  
Sebastian’s eyes look up to find Joseph’s face.  
Oh, he’s embarrassed, alright,  
His face is red, his lips pressed tight, but at least he looks relaxed.  
_That was the goal, right?_  
  
“Feeling better?” Sebastian asks, clearing his throat, and desperately trying not to make things weird.  
“Yeah…” Joseph answers, still looking visibly flustered.  
“Well, that’s good.”  
  
Joseph glances at Sebastian. His cheeks are a bit red, his eyes half-closed in a muted shame, and eyebrows furrowed lightly.  
  
“... Thank you for that,” he whispers. “You really didn’t have to.”  
“Hey, as long as you feel better,” Sebastian replies, cracking up a smile.  
“I do,” Joseph admits, rearranging the blanket over him.  
“Then that’s good,” Sebastian says, closing the gap between them as he throws an arm over Joseph’s chest and gently guides his head in the crook of his neck, desperately trying to make things look normal again.  
  
Joseph notices his effort. Pushing his shame aside to deal with another day, he curls himself up against Sebastian — just like they always do.  
_As if nothing happened…_  
“... Thank you again.”  
“Anytime,” Sebastian hums, burying his face in Joseph’s hair.  
  
He hears Joseph’s breath hitch in his throat, as if to ask “anytime? For real?” and Sebastian doesn’t have to speak out loud for Joseph to understand his “anytime, for real”.  
He loops his arms around Joseph’s body, pulling him close, and places a chaste kiss on his forehead.  
  
“Goodnight, Joseph,” he whispers.  
“Goodnight, Seb,” he is answered.  
  
_Let me be your hands next time you do this._

 

 


	4. Migraine Fuel (Witch-Hazel, Daffodil)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian desperately tries to make sense of the previous night and overthinks, for a change.

          Sebastian wakes up with Joseph’s nose buried in the crook of his neck, breathing softly, mouth slightly open in his sleep. He brushes a wild lock out of the younger man’s eyes, accidentally touching his lashes as his eyes flutter open.  
Joseph makes a small grunt of surprise as he jolts awake.   
  
“Oh, shit,” Sebastian mouths as Joseph slowly pulls away from him to rub his eyes, “I’m so sorry, Joseph, I didn’t mean to wake you up…”   
“‘T’s’fine,” Joseph mutters as he rolls on his back to stretch properly, “I was waking up by myself already.”   
  
Sebastian places an arm over Joseph’s chest in a light embrace as the other man yawns and extends his arm over his head, hitting the headboard, before repositioning himself on his pillow, rubbing cheeks and eyes in an attempt to wake himself up more effectively. He lets out another yawn as he kicks the blanket out of over his legs. Joseph blinks a few times, adjusting his vision and mind to being awake, then turns to Sebastian.   
Joseph smiles and his eyes gently close as Sebastian pulls him into a warm embrace, holding him against his chest for a good-morning kiss.   
  
“Slept well?” Sebastian asks, lips brushing against Joseph’s forehead.   
“Like an angel,” Joseph answers, rubbing his face between Sebastian’s pectorals like a cat would rub against its owner’s legs.   
  
_Oh, this again, uh?_   
  
“Well then,” Sebastian chuckles, “that must mean yesterday’s relaxation session was successful.”   
“Please don’t refer to my masturbation as this,” Joseph mutters as he pushes his whole face into Sebastian’s torso in embarrassment.   
  
Sebastian loops his arms around Joseph’s shoulders and one of his hands comes to rest between his shoulder blades, rubbing his partner’s back vigorously as he giggles.   
  
“Okay,” Sebastian backs down, “okay. Will try to stop in the future.”   
  
Joseph sighs loudly against Sebastian’s skin.   
  
“Alright,” the older man gently calls him with a pat on his back, “I’m going to make breakfast. You should go take a bath. To relax.”   
  
Joseph huffs but Sebastian sees the corner of his lips be drawn up in a smile as he wiggles out of Sebastian’s embrace and then away from him.   
  
“Okay,” he sighs.   
“Tea or coffee?”   
“Coffee, please.”   
“Right on.”   
  
And Joseph crawls out of the bed. He picks up his glasses on the nightstand, walks to the closet to pick up some clothes, and leaves. Sebastian’s eyes get caught on the curve of his ass as he watches him walk away.   
  


  
          Sebastian pours two cups of coffee, trying to make them as even as possible to avoid injustice. He shoves two freshly-sliced pieces of bread in the old toaster before picking up the butter from the fridge and the sugar and nori sheets — which he still thinks incredibly weird-looking, unappealing and disgusting, how can Joseph eat that? Sebastian is repulsed. But, well, he loves the man, so he’ll accept it — from the shelves, and bring everything onto the table.   
  
He cuts a few peaches and apples in small pieces and dumps them in a bowl — one of Joseph’s ideas, on which he insisted, for the two of them to “eat healthier” — adds the last banana of the kitchen, and brings the plate to the table. He thinks of adding maple syrup, just like Joseph likes, but he remembers that time he accidentally poured way too much, being unfamiliar with the bottle, which ended making the fruit salad so sugary he had to drink two more cups of coffee to make the taste go away.   
As he hears the water in the bathroom get cut, Sebastian puts on the table plates for the two of them, forks for the fruits, spoons for the coffee, and takes his seat.   
As he waits for Joseph to be done with his grooming and dressing up, Sebastian’s thoughts start to wander back to the night before.   
_That was something_ , he thinks. _That was something I wasn’t expecting._   
He feels kind of weird now, like he doesn’t know in which measure his relationship has changed.   
He saw Joseph under a different light, that night, and he doesn’t know if he’s shocked, uncomfortable, absolutely delighted or… um… aroused.   
Maybe all at the same time.   
_It’s so weird!_ he keeps repeating to himself. _It’s so weird!_   
Last night’s situation opened a whole new can of worms — albeit very sexy worms, he must admit.   
What does all of that mean?   
He can’t keep his thoughts from running around in his brain at maximum speed. He senses a headache coming.   
  
Had Joseph been holding himself up from taking care of himself _in that way_ for the time they’ve been dating? What about before that? Had he avoided to put himself in that situation when they were still just friends but living under the same roof? Had he been hiding it?   
_Oh god, my head is going fucking explode…_   
Had Joseph’s libido been affected by STEM, whether directly by whatever god-awful chemicals they could have been drugged with to stay asleep or indirectly by the trauma it hit them with? Would that have had an impact on whether or not he would have wanted to jerk off?   
_Why_ the fuck _am I thinking about this so much?!_ Sebastian swears to himself, throwing his head into his hands.   
He rubs his hands on his face like he’s trying to rub his skin off.   
_What has gotten into me… Joseph, I am so sorry._   
  
Sebastian eyes at his steaming cup of coffee, waiting patiently to be sipped on. He slips his finger in the handle, feeling the warm through the porcelain, as he desperately tries to think about something else.   
_Maybe it was just that,_ he thinks, _that Joseph needed to release some pressure. Just releasing some pressure._   
And it probably is nothing than that, he tries to reason himself. But still…   
_Does Joseph have sexual desires? Joseph_ must _have desires_ , he thinks. Joseph is a grown man, and one who has been in love with him for a decade, he thinks. There _must_ have been, at some point, a time where he has had… fantasies. Some shameful dreams he never ever brought up. Some thoughts he had when very alone, or very drunk.   
_I should just ask him_ , Sebastian thinks, _but maybe not… right now._   
It’s all so new. So new, so different, and so exciting.   
He needs to let Joseph get used to this, he thinks. The younger man seemed pretty thrilled, even if he barely showed it — a tiny sparkle in the brown of his eye, a red hue of trepidation painting his cheeks — at the idea that this astounding situation was only the first excerpt of something bigger.   
_We’ll see,_ Sebastian sighs, _we’ll see._   
And as he stares into his coffee, and his reflection stares back, he remembers the time he laid a distressed, hurt, confused, and very naked Joseph  on the bed with the goal of getting him all dressed up to drive him to the hospital, and thought “I wouldn’t mind seeing him naked some other time, in another situation, in which he would rather be moaning in pleas—”   
He stops his thoughts from going too loud, terrified of Joseph hearing them as he walks into the kitchen, fingers fumbling with the already perfect knot of his tie.   
  
“Hey,” Joseph greets him with a gentle smile.   
“Hey,” Sebastian answers in the same tone.   
  
His awkward thoughts ran in the back of his brain to be dwelled on another time and Sebastian gets caught up in Joseph’s tender smile, his radiant eyes, his frank posture, how his entire attire was so carefully and attentively put together.   
This is something he adores about finally being this man’s lover, he thinks. All the little details of Joseph’s face that he barely gave attention to when they were friends seem to catch his eyes like sparks of light: the crease between his eyebrows, that he got from worrying and thinking too much, the light crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes, the shape of his upper lip — it is all so beautiful, and Sebastian has to resist the urge to jump on Joseph to cover his face with kisses.   
Sebastian loves feeling this love. Joseph’s smiles fill him with joy and warmth, and when the man comes up to him and slowly leans forward to get a kiss, Sebastian slips two fingers under the knot of his tie to pull him closer.   
Sebastian feels Joseph’s lips curl in a smile as one of his gloved hands comes to ever so gently brush a lock out of in front of his eyes.   
Joseph’s eyes are still half-lidded in bliss when they part.   
  
“Good morning to you too,” Joseph whispers, his voice washing over Sebastian’s forehead like waves from a warm sea.   
  
Sebastian smiles and pulls out the chair for Joseph to sit on.   
  
  
  
          An officer with a car that’s way too loud drives them to the next witness. Joseph reviews his notes, remembering quickly everything they had been able to gather so far, and adding in nervous strokes of his pen some questions he would like to ask the woman they were visiting.   
  
“God damn, I thought that car was going to fall in pieces in the middle of the road,” Sebastian complains at Joseph’s ears when they finally get out of the automobile.   
“I know,” Joseph whispers in return, “me too.”   
  
Sebastian stands back upright, looks right, looks left, looks behind them, and when the coast seems clear, he places a small peck in Joseph’s neck. His partner lets out a small laugh, before gently nudging him in the ribs.   
  
“Focus, Seb,” Joseph orders, an amused smile floating in his voice.   
“Yeah, yeah,” Sebastian nods as he brushes invisible dirt off his vest. “Professional.”   
“Professional.” 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have to admit it to you, as i reviewed this chapter in may i had no memory of the can of sexy worms. i don't remember how high, if high, i was when i wrote it, but i didn't have the heart to delete and rephrase.  
> you have to live with the image of sexy worms in your mind forever now.


	5. Slip-Up (Delphinium)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joseph is one noisy man.

          Joseph looks calm and composed as he looks at the ceiling with half-lidded eyes, waiting for sleep to catch up on him. He glances at Sebastian when he walks into the room from his shower, the towel still around his neck. They exchange a soft smile when Sebastian walks to his closet to find a new pair of sleep pants. He will not bother wearing a top, he decides.   
He decided well, he thinks, as he crawls under the blanket bare-chested and Joseph’s eyes light up in glee.   
_ You’re welcome! _ __   
Sebastian wiggles closer to Joseph as his partner does the same, both of them sliding on the sheet in a weird interpretative dance, like two happy worms writhing on sand.   
Sebastian extends an arm to allow Joseph access to the crook of his neck. The younger man lets himself be cradled in his lover’s arms, throwing one of his legs over Sebastian’s thighs in a loving, almost possessive gesture. Sebastian giggles and lets Joseph cling to him like he’s some kind of life-saving buoy on the middle of the Arctic sea, before running his large, warm hand in Joseph’s freshly-brushed hair. Joseph comfortably nestles himself against Sebastian, almost using his whole body as a blanket and a hot water bottle at the same time. The older man presses his lips to Joseph’s hair, burying his nose in the locks smelling of sage, from his shampoo, and Cologne.   
They stay embraced this. Joseph’s eyes start to close, bit by bit, his breathing evens and his whole body relaxes, melting into the mattress. Time is quiet around them, allowing them to rest in silence.   
  
“... Hey…” Sebastian lowly calls Joseph, his voice muffled in the younger man’s hair.   
  
Joseph’s eyes struggle to open, and Sebastian suddenly feels guilty to have woken him up.   
  
“Mmnh… Yeah?” Joseph mumbles, voice a little hoarse with sleep creeping on him.   
“I… I was thinking about last night,” Sebastian begins, his voice barely a whisper.   
  
Joseph makes a small “oh!” and Sebastian sees him blush before burying his face in Sebastian’s chest in bashfulness.   
  
“Let’s forget about that, shall we?” Joseph pleads against Sebastian’s skin.   
“I was thinking,” Sebastian continues, forcing himself to ignore his partner’s embarrassment, “that if you ever need again to, um, self-gratify like last night—”   
“God, please,” Joseph cuts him off in a huff, “don’t say it like that.”   
“What do you mean, ‘like that’?”   
“Don’t… just don’t use euphemisms, okay?” the younger man mumbles against his lover’s skin. “You’re making it more awkward than it already is. Just use ‘jerk off’, or something,” he finishes, chuckling nervously.   
  
Sebastian blinks. He would have done it earlier, if he didn’t think Joseph was a bit squeamish about these things, maybe trying to avoid the crudest words.   
  
“Okay. Well, I was thinking if you ever need to jack off like you did last night, I…” He bites the inside of his cheek, pulls with his teeth on his lower lip, and lets out a long expiration. “I wouldn’t mind.”   
  
Joseph’s eyes snap open to stare at him, one of his eyebrows furrowed so hard it almost hides his whole eye from this angle. He stares at Sebastian for a few seconds, searching his face for any hint that he is joking and, finding none, dives back head first into his chest to hide. It’s almost childish, Sebastian thinks, and absolutely not something he would have expected from his stern, so adult-looking, competent partner.   
  
“Let’s forget about it,” Joseph hammers. “It was just one time. I didn’t feel great and it was the first thing that came to my mind.”   
“All I’m saying,” Sebastian insists, “is that if you ever want to do that again, you don’t have to go through last night’s long, awkward process to find us a way around it, okay? You can just… ask.” Sebastian finishes, trying his absolute best not to sound like he’s making a big deal out of it.  _ Just be cool, friendly, relaxed, and pretend it’s nothing. _   
  
_ It’s not as if it’s about the man you’ve been friend with for a decade whacking off just next to you. Like inches away from you. Like he’s curled up against you like you two are just going to sleep a good sleep and wake up in the morning. _ __   
  
Sebastian feels Joseph’s body all tense against his. His eyes darting on the side, avoiding Sebastian’s gaze, he seems to be in deep, perplexing thoughts.   
Finally, he lets out a long sigh, as if he was giving up on focusing so much on that, and Sebastian feels his whole frame relax, body melting against him and into the mattress. Joseph takes his righteous place, curled up in Sebastian’s warmth, embraced in his arms, and his nose finds its place against Sebastian’s collarbone.   
  
“Okay,” Joseph sighs, exhaustion seemingly catching up on him. “We’ll see. Let’s just sleep for now.”   
  
Sebastian chuckles at his sudden change of perspective, mentally letting out a sigh of relief.    
_ Thank god this discussion is over, _ he thinks.  _ We just have to wait, now. _ __   
He feels Joseph’s hands coming to rest on his naked chest like he’s trying to subtly feel his breasts.   
_ You’re not so smooth when you’re tired, love…  _ Sebastian smiles to himself, chuckling lowly at his own thoughts.   
He holds Joseph tighter and waits for sleep to crawl up to him.   
  
  
  
          The first few days following the discussion, Sebastian thinks Joseph is never going to bring it up again.   
He carefully avoids the conversation, so subtly that Sebastian feels like it never happened.   
Until one day, as they’re curled up under the blankets, Joseph says it again.   
  
The first few times he wants it, he makes excuses. It greatly amuses Sebastian — but he doesn’t show it.   
  
“I’m very tired today… I could use some time to wind down…”   
“The bath wasn’t relaxing enough…”   
“I have a migraine, I could use some kind of distraction…”   
  
It’s so funny to Sebastian, while at the same time, scares him in ways he doesn’t fully understand. He doesn’t want Joseph to ever change his mind, though. He doesn’t want to lose this strangely lazing time.   
It’s always so relaxing — nestled under the blanket, feeling the warmth of Joseph’s body against his side, in a gentle quietude only disturbed by the sound of Joseph’s voice… Sebastian feels like he could fall asleep like that, holding his lover against his chest as Joseph does his thing, nose nestled against his collarbone, his heartbeat for lullaby — but he never can.   
Because everytime, Joseph gets more…  _ confident _ , Sebastian thinks he could say.   
He gets a little bit louder every time.   
  
At first, Sebastian can only hear the changing volume of his moans ; bit by bit, the pleasured noises that Joseph had been trying to keep as low as possible, sometimes throwing a hand over his mouth, or turning his face against the pillow to muffle himself, start growing noisier and noisier.   
Then, once Joseph seemed to have had enough of only expressing his pleasure with noises, he let words slip past his lips — accidentally, the first few times, as he would stop immediately after his voice had escaped his mouth and cover it with one of his hands in shame.   
Most of the time, they are small curses, hushed swear words followed by a smaller moan, and  _ this is probably the hottest shit I’ve ever witnessed, _ Sebastian thinks as he forces himself with all of his might not to open his eyes and look at Joseph’s face, which he imagines making the most delighted of expressions.   
Sebastian doesn’t really know what gets him this worked up ; after all, he found the moans alone were pretty damn arousing on their own, so why is he so passionate now?   
He starts to dwell on that as Joseph cusses and groans just next to his ear.   
_ Oh, _ he thinks, _ it’s the cursing. It’s absolutely the cursing. _ __   
He had never really heard Joseph swearing, the man always finding elegant detours around swear words, and always containing himself to keep his energy and strength, even in delicate situations. Whereas Sebastian would call a criminal they were after an incestuous son of a lady of the night as he had them in the scope of his sniper rifle, Joseph would carefully observe their surroundings to find a better place to take cover and aim from.   
Even in STEM, surrounded by distorted and bloody nightmares of enemies or spitting blood, Joseph had never sworn.   
This made the whole thing so new and exciting.    
Sebastian presses himself a little harder against Joseph, his face further in the warmth of the younger man’s neck. Sebastian feels Joseph’s next choked curse build in his throat, and bites the inside of his cheek as hard as he can in an attempt to swallow back the kiss that threatens to leave his mouth and spill against Joseph’s neck.   
  


  
  
          “What about you?” Joseph once asks Sebastian over a cup of coffee.   
“What about me?” Sebastian repeats, a bit confused.   
“You’re always next to me when I jerk off,” Joseph begins, and Sebastian almost chokes on the piece of bread he had in his mouth — the word sounds so foreign, so weird and twisted in Joseph’s mouth, it’s unreal, Sebastian feels like it doesn’t belong, “but you’ve never asked for anything in return. I’ve never seen you do the same on your side, and I’ve never thought about asking you.”   
  


Sebastian watches Joseph, a bit stunned, trying to fit in his skull all the implicit information that his brain seems to have a hard time swallowing, as he takes a few sips of coffee in the hopes of getting the piece of bread stuck in throat down his esophagus.    
His eyes examine Joseph’s face, trying to find any hints of a joke, of a covered laugh, of anything, really… but Joseph keeps staring at him with these big old brown eyes, and he’s so damn sincere, almost worried.   
Sebastian’s thoughts, at the image of Joseph curled up next to him as he jerks off, eyes closed and breathing in the crook of his neck, start throwing themselves against the walls of his skull with desperate screams. His mind fills itself with pictures of him moaning Joseph’s name when reaching climax, of Joseph opening his eyes in surprise, of the man leaving the warmth of his nose to position himself over him, looking at him in awe, and—   
  
“No, I’m good,” Sebastian cuts himself off. “Don’t worry about me.”   
“... You’re sure?”   
“Yeah,” he replies, forcing a small, casual, laid back laugh.    
“Okay, then…” Joseph sighs.   
  
The two last slices of bread jump out of the toaster, and Joseph gets up to fetch them.   
  
“I still hope you’ll let me hear you moan, one day,” Joseph breathes as he places the bread on the table, so low Sebastian almost doesn’t hear it — but he does, and he chokes on his coffee, coughing it out on the tablecloth.   
  
  
  
          It begins like any other of their sessions. Sebastian carefully lies on his side, Joseph nestled against him, and hides his face in the younger man’s neck. It’s comfortable. Sebastian closes his eyes.   
Joseph quickly discards his pants, that he kicks out of over his legs — he just likes having them free, Sebastian thinks, that’s understandable — and Sebastian can hear the familiar sound of underwear being pushed down to thighs.   
_ Here comes my favorite part… _ __   
Sebastian takes a long, deep breath as he feels Joseph's body move from his arm reaching between his legs, and a very small smile escape his lips.   
  
It begins like any other session, with Joseph needing a few — what, seconds? minutes? — to warm himself up. Sebastian feels Joseph’s frame relax and sink into the mattress. He adjusts his position against the younger man, one of his arms under his head, the other over Joseph’s chest.   
Joseph’s voice starts to blossom, his ragged breathing changing into his lowest moans.   
_ Yes… yes… _ __   
Sebastian feels himself hold Joseph tighter.   
Joseph’s tongue pushes his voice a little louder out of his mouth, with his groans resounding deep and low in his chest — Sebastian feels them locked in the cage of Joseph’s ribs, fleeing up his throat like birds.    
Then come the curses, Sebastian’s favorite moment.   
He doesn’t know how long Joseph will last, this night. Sebastian remembers times where Joseph needed what seemed like a long, long session to barely get himself comfortable, being too tense and jumpy from the day before ; others where he was gone in a few minutes.   
Sebastian tries to keep his breathing even to counterbalance Joseph’s, jagged and labored, and his eyes shut. Peeking, just once, just a few milliseconds, is incredibly tempting, but he has to keep his promise. This is the smallest, thinnest veil of privacy Joseph has asked for, and Sebastian will leave him have that.   
  
“Mmh… Oh,  _ fuck _ ,” Sebastian hears Joseph swears, and  _ god damn that’s hot _ , he can’t help but think.   
  
Joseph’s voice is louder than the other times, he can’t help but notice, and his moans are less dispersed, more heated, he curses, curses, and suddenly—   
  
“Oh God,  _ Seb _ , f-fuck…”   
  
Sebastian’s eyes snap open.   
Joseph’s eyes snap open.   
Sebastian stares at Joseph.   
Joseph stares at the ceiling.   
Sebastian looks at Joseph’s face to see it burn red in embarrassment.   
Joseph  _ doesn’t _ look at Sebastian’s face, effectively missing his golden eyes opened wide in a mix of surprise, shock, and awe, pupils blown dark and big in excitation.   
  
“Joseph…?” Sebastian calls, his voice so low Joseph feels it against his skin more than he hears it.   
“Oh no,” Joseph mutters, “oh no…”   
  
Sebastian disentangles himself from his comfortable position to push himself up on an elbow. He leans forward for his face to hover over Joseph’s.    
Joseph’s eyes are still stubbornly fixed on a particular point on the ceiling.   
  
“Joseph,” Sebastian repeats, his voice so sweet and enamored he barely recognizes it.   
  
Joseph doesn’t answer. His eyes switch suddenly from the ceiling to Sebastian’s irises, gaze so intense with — what, shame? it can’t be shame, it’s too… sweet —, burning holes in Sebastian’s pupils.   
  
“Can we forget about this, never bring it up, and continue as if nothing happened?” Joseph asks, voice low and almost scared.   
“Absolutely not,” Sebastian answers, and he has this smile toying with the corners of his mouth, his eyes shining with fondness and eagerness.   
  
Joseph closes his eyes and sighs, his breathing unsteady with emotion.   
  
“I guess I tried,” he tries to joke, his shaking voice failing him.   
  
Sebastian pushes himself upward to be able to sit, then places one hand on each side of Joseph’s shoulders, his eyes firmly planted into Joseph’s.   
Joseph’s gaze is avoidant, shy, almost scared.   
_ So this is your kind of secret…? _ __   
Sebastian balances his weight on one arm to be able to liberate the other. Slowly, gently, he puts his hand under Joseph’s chin, tenderly making him look into his eyes, before sliding his fingers on Joseph’s cheek.   
  
“Joseph,” he whispers, words clear as crystal in an almost uncomfortable silence, “did you think about me when you jerked off?”   
  
Joseph chokes on his breath and Sebastian thinks that, oops, he should have spared him at least a bit. Joseph’s teeth dive into his bottom lips as he tries to avoid the question — or, more likely, the feelings behind the answer.

  
“Joseph,” Sebastian calls him, even softer this time, “please, answer me.”  
  
He watches Joseph close his eyes, then sigh.   
His shoulders drop at his sides, tension suddenly leaving him, and when he pries his lids open again, Sebastian can see a spark of honesty in the brown of his eyes, as if a veil of secrets had suddenly been lifted, and Joseph could look at him in all his truth.  
  
“Yeah,” Joseph says, his voice sounding as deep as it is low. “... I thought it was a given,” he adds, his gaze switching to the side in a muffled shame, making him look like a teenager who just confessed to his first love.  
  
The last bit of his sentence has Sebastian’s whole face heat up in excitement. His eyes widen like he had just seen God, and his thoughts start racing through his mind as he observes Joseph try to hide his face with his free hand.  
Joseph?   
Joseph?  
Joseph _wants_ him?  
Joseph _desires_ him?  
Joseph has _sexual fantasies_ about him?  
 _Oh god,_ he frantically thinks, _oh god, this is so, this is so good —_  
  
“Do you want me?” Sebastian asks, lowering himself even more on Joseph’s body, his voice barely a whisper just for his lover to hear.  
“Oh my God — _yes_ , Seb,” Joseph groans, trying to sound frustrated.  
  
 _This is so good. This is so good. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me._ _  
_Sebastian feels like his whole body is singing with warmth, his face feeling way hotter than it’s supposed to be.  
He tries to settle on top of Joseph but bumps into his partner’s hand that, he had forgotten, is still closed in a fist around his cock.  
  
“Oh, my bad,” Sebastian says as he rolls back into his usual place, his face still close to Joseph’s.   
  
Sebastian’s smile, painting his face with light, making his eyes shine with gold, has Joseph’s breath hitching in his throat, and even if there’s a small part of his brain going “you should probably let go of your dick”, the rest of his thoughts is subjugated by the affection and fervor Sebastian’s gaze hold him in.  
  
Sebastian leans forward some more, his nose brushing against the tip of Joseph’s. His smile tickles Joseph’s lips as he asks:  
  
“Joe, love, have you ever have fantasies about me?”  
  
Joseph closes his eyes and bites his lower lip.  
 _Oh, that means yes…_ _  
_He reopens them. He doesn’t look ashamed anymore — in his eyes shine a mix of defiance and pure honesty.  
 _… I still want to hear him say it._ _  
_  
“Yeah,” Joseph says, his voice frank and clear. “Not just one time, either,” he teases.  
  
Sebastian’s eyes light up, glistening golden with eagerness and thrill at Joseph’s words.  
Joseph starts thinking he shouldn’t have said it, because now Sebastian will want to know, and he doesn’t really feel prepared to tell him everything. He throws his head back, lays his arm over his eyes, and prays to be swallowed by his pillow.    
Sebastian smiles at his endeavor and gently nudges his nose in the crook of Joseph’s neck, cradling Joseph’s face in one hand as he slips the other under his back. He offers a small kiss at the juncture of Joseph’s jaw.  
  
“Could you tell me about them?” Sebastian asks against Joseph’s skin, softly, lowly, enamored and charmed, the warmth of his breath sending shivers up Joseph’s spine.  
  
He slowly leans back to observe Joseph’s reaction.   
The younger man changed from his defiant expression to something heavier, almost pained. The worried crease between his eyebrows is back, his teeth are diving into his cheek.  
  
“Joseph?” Sebastian calls him, a bit worried.  
“I’d rather not,” Joseph whispers, suddenly sounding almost somber.  
“Why not?”  
  
Joseph lets out a long, almost pained sigh.  
  
“I’m scared it’ll make you look back on some moments we had together and think, ‘oh, he was inappropriate this one time, here’s why, it’s because he wanted this and that’... I’m scared you won’t look at me like your colleague and friend anymore,” he mutters.  
  
Sebastian pushes himself back on one elbow to observe Joseph. He looks genuinely troubled, fidgeting in the sheets, avoiding Sebastian’s gaze.  
  
“Hey,” the older man calls him, curling up against his side, “hey, Joseph. I __swear I won’t be freaked out. You don’t really scare me,” he chuckles, managing to pull a small laugh from Joseph’s mouth too. “And I can't, I’m telling you, I can’t even think of one time you would have been inappropriate with me. You were always almost distant and, considering the fact that, apparently, you’ve loved me for an awkwardly long time, you were incredibly strong at hiding everything.”  
  
  
Joseph’s eyes dart to Sebastian’s face, still looking almost scared, searching for reassurance.  
Sebastian cups one of Joseph’s cheek with his free hand and lodges a small peck at the corner of the younger man’s mouth.  
  
“No more secrets, okay?” he whispers, and Joseph seems to melt at his words. “Unless it’s some… uh… very weird shit. In that case, I don’t really know what to do.”  
  
Joseph lets out a shaky, low laugh.  
  
“It’s not that weird,” he says, shaking his head and trying to force a smile. “At least I don’t think it is. I’m very… traditional. Not really into freaky stuff.”  
  
Sebastian lets out an exaggerated sigh of relief, which makes Joseph chuckle a little more heartily than before.  
  
  
In a strangely comfortable silence, Joseph takes a deep breath. The world outside had made itself quiet for him to speak, and only the distant trotting of hands on a clock and some cars outside are heard.  
  
“Okay,” he breathes, “okay.”  
  
Sebastian’s lips curl into a smile and his eyes start gleaming again.  
  
“... Let me just let go of my dick and pull my pants back on though.”  
“Oh, sure.”  


 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do you know how much time i spent looking for a medically yet contextually correct word for "man tiddies" ? because i can tell you those are hours of my life i won't get back


	6. No More Secrets (Ambrosia)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joseph is... quite talkative.

          Joseph rubs his hands over his face, mumbling low in his chest, as Sebastian watches him do this mental preparation.   
  
“Oh god… Where do I even begin?”   
“By the beginning sounds good,” Sebastian chuckles as he settles on an elbow.   
  
Joseph laughs with him.   
  
“Yeah. Okay.”   
  
He closes his eyes as he inhales deeply. When he reopens them, they’re flashing confidence.   
_ Oh god, _ Sebastian thinks.  _ I’m the one who’s not ready for this, am I. _ __  
  
“On the first day,” Joseph begins, “I didn’t think much more than a vague ‘oh, he’s hot’.”   
  
Sebastian snorts.   
  
“Jump to a few weeks, or a month later, and I was thinking ‘well, I wouldn’t mind if he slapped my ass when greeting me’.”   
  
Joseph giggles at his own recollection of thoughts.   
  
“Then came the… Oh god,” Joseph cuts himself off as he throws an arm over his eyes. “Oh god.”   
“Yes?” Sebastian encourages him, suddenly extremely interested. “Yes?”   
  
Joseph moves his arm just so one of his eyes is uncovered. He glances at Sebastian.   
  
“When I wasn’t thinking about you kissing me in dark corners, I would have these vivid sparks of thoughts, every time you passed by my desk and leaned over my shoulder, of you making me bend over my work table, pushing the papers and the computer off of it, untie my belt to pull my pants to my knees, and ravish me on the spot.”   
  
Sebastian’s mouth falls open, no sound but him choking on air making it past his lips.  
Joseph moves his arm back over his eyes, a soundless laugh curling his lips in a smile.  
  
“They would only last a split second, but they would mark me for the rest of the day.”  
Joseph rubs his palms over his cheeks in embarrassment.   
  
“Yeah… Sometimes you would speak over my shoulder, just next to my ear, telling me about new clues you found, and I would nod while my mind flashed in the back of my skull pieces of a litany of ‘my, yes, I would gladly appreciate you bent me over this table and had me as you wish’.”   
It takes Sebastian an immeasurable amount of self-control to restrain himself from jumping on Joseph and making his fantasies a reality right there and right now.   
“I’d also have the usual, you know, work fantasies of you inviting me under your desk to, you know… be your  _ private assistant _ .”   
  
Sebastian feels physically unable to speak as Joseph hums to the tone of his own memories. Suddenly, his expression seems to darken, his brows furrowing, lips tightening.   
  
“Then… In STEM… I…”   
  
Joseph closes his eyes. Sebastian feels him tense under his weight, and the pink hue that colored his cheeks disappears from his face.   
_ Oh no _ , Sebastian thinks, _ oh no. _ __  
  
“You don’t have to tell me,” Sebastian whispers hastily, holding Joseph tighter. “If the memory’s too painful, you don’t have to tell me.”   
“It’s fine, Seb,” Joseph replies, his voice trembling and dry. “It’s fine.”   
  
Joseph needs a moment to find his composure, one of his hands coming to grab the arm Sebastian had thrown over his chest.   
  
“In STEM, I would just have these thoughts going ‘hey, we’re probably going to die a horrible death down here, so how about we find a relatively comfortable place to sit down, relax, and fuck until reality comes crashing down around us and leaves us in limbo?’. At some other moments — when we were together — I would just think ‘please,  _ please _ kiss me, we’re all going to die here, and I don’t want to go without having tasted your lips, just one kiss is all I need—”   
  
Joseph’s breathing is starting to go erratic, he chokes on air and on what seems to be incoming tears, he huffs and pants as he tries to pull himself up so he doesn’t drown — Sebastian hastily helps him up, rearranging the pillow under his back, and cupping his face in his warm hands.   
  
“Hey,” Sebastian says, “hey, hey, Joseph,” he repeats, voice low and soft, trying to make himself sound as gentle as possible, “you’re fine now, we’re fine now, we’re out of this.”   
  
Joseph wheezes as he curls onto himself, visibly  _ not _ psychically “out of this” — he’s hurt, he’s hurt, and seeing the fat tears rolling down his burning cheeks as he chokes on sharp bits of memories still stuck in his throat, Sebastian thinks that, maybe, he’ll never be “out of this”.   
  
“Joseph,” he calls, “Joseph. Look at me. Look at me.”   
  
And Joseph does, eyes red with tears, pupils retracted on themselves in fear. Sebastian gently pushes Joseph back onto his pillow, pulling the blanket up to his chin and looping his arms around him. Firmly secured in Sebastian’s arms, Joseph is able to start to relax — his breathing slows down, each breath regaining their mild volume.   
  
“We’re out of it now,” Sebastian repeats. “We’re out of it and we don’t have to fear death at every corner anymore.”   
  
He pushes himself up against Joseph’s side.   
  
“... And we can kiss whenever you want,” he adds, lower.   
  
Joseph glances at him with his brown eyes fogged with tears. A small smile cracks his pale mask of terror.   
  
“Yeah…” he mutters.   
  
Sebastian catches the glance Joseph slips in direction of his lips. He smirks.   
His grip around Joseph tightens, and he gently rolls over to prop himself on top of Joseph. The younger man’s hands emerge from under his weight to rest one on each of his cheeks, and Sebastian lets himself be gently pulled down to Joseph’s mouth.   
Joseph’s lips part the moment they meet Sebastian’s, and the older man nudges his nose against Joseph’s, moving one of his hands to cup his cheek. Letting his teeth graze over Joseph’s lips, Sebastian hums and moans, ever so slightly, in the kiss, each purse of his lips bringing Joseph’s hands closer to his shoulders.   
Sebastian’s tongue flicks past his lips to brush a soft line on one of Joseph’s, and Joseph’s breath hitches in his throat as his eyes snap open.   
Sebastian leans back, the seal of their lips breaking in a small, slightly wet sound,  to look at him with golden, revering eyes, smiling at the astounded and blissful expression on his previously terrified face.   
Sebastian brushes Joseph’s cheek with a loving finger.   
  
“Tell me more,” he asks, his voice silky, almost mellow.   
  
Joseph exhales deeply, his arms looping around Sebastian’s neck.   
  
“At the time you would drive me back to my apartment — when my car had broken down on me in the middle of the road, remember? — I’d just think, when we would ride in almost complete silence, something along the lines of ‘if you’d ask me, right now, to suck you off as you drive, I would’.”   
  
Joseph lets one of his arms slip from Sebastian’s shoulder and takes a few seconds to readjust his pillow under his head. Sebastian thinks he has forgotten how one does breathe, Joseph’s words having punched him in the gut with an overwhelmingly arousing warmth, and the man doesn’t give him any damn rest.   
  
“You would walk me to the front door of the building, and I would think of inviting you in with something like ‘hey, care to come in, have some wine, maybe a snack, and carry me to my room before throwing me onto my bed and fucking me all night long?’, but, well, I never did.”   
  
Joseph lets out a small chuckle which sounds strangely bitter. As he doesn’t immediately continue his story, Sebastian manages to fetch his voice back from his throat where it had hidden and asks, hoarse and breathy with shock, as this damn warmth monopolizes every single one of his veins for its propagation:   
  
“Did you jerk off to the thought of your fantasy coming true that night?”   
“ _ Oh my GOD _ , Sebastian—!” Joseph blurts out, choking onto his next memory, throwing his head back against the headboard and his arms over his face in a cross to cover his embarrassment.   
  
Sebastian lets out a short, warm, amused laugh as he nudges Joseph’s arms out of his face, desperately trying to think about something else than the fact that Joseph’s words have made his pants feel three times tighter.    
Joseph’s cheeks are turning red with heat, and he’s still trying use his hands as a mask to hide under.   
  
“Well?” Sebastian chuckles softly against Joseph’s temple as he cradles his blushing face in his hands. “Did you?”   
  
Joseph sighs deeply, his face wearing a slightly amused expression.   
  
“Well, yeah,” he admits, letting out a small laugh that Sebastian imitates gladly. “Not my proudest wank, I must say.”   
  
Sebastian chuckles as he readjusts his position, slowly regaining Joseph’s side. He presses himself some more against his partner’s hip, letting one of his hand brush his black, still slightly wet, locks from in front of his eyes.   
  
“What else?” he encourages, voice low and gentle against Joseph’s skin.   
“Oh, you know,” Joseph jokes, voice still a little bit croaky, “the usual. When you would slap my ass in the showers, you know, as a token of our friendship, I would think something along the lines of ‘do I need to drop my soap or could you push me, elbows against the wall, have me bend over and fuck me in this mess of bubbles and burning water?’, you know, the usual.”   
  
Sebastian’s jaw, as it is dropped in astonishment, is starting to hurt. He manages to close it, realizing in doing so that a thin line of drool had escaped past his lips.   
_ Oh my god, Castellanos _ , he chastises himself as he manages to swallow it back without Joseph noticing — or at least he hopes he didn’t,  _ oh fuck _ , he hopes he didn’t.   
Joseph peeks at him from eyes he had closed and lets out a small, tired hum.   
  
“So, yeah… Here’s that,” he simply says.   
  
Sebastian nods, his eyes still blown wide in shock.   
Joseph’s quite graphic descriptions of his fantasies have started swimming in the deep lake of his thoughts, and the water is starting to get hotter.   
Sebastian’s mind seems hell-bent on recreating his partner’s daydream as vividly as possible, painting Joseph as the luscious muse of sharpy sexuals phantasms, and it’s making it quite hard for Sebastian to focus — and also, making  _ it _ quite  __ hard , too.

  
“... You’re not freaked out?” Joseph asks, his brows slightly raised in apprehension.   
“No,” Sebastian manages to articulate through the lust-scented fog Joseph’s words had put him in. “I’m not.”   
“How are you feeling…?” Joseph inquires.    
  
Sebastian swallows loudly, positioning himself against his pillow.   
  
“Well,” he says, voice thick and hoarse, “to be perfectly honest, you just gave me a  _ massive _ boner.”   
  
Joseph chokes on the sharp laugh that leaves his mouth, and he has to jolt upward in order to cough it out, shrieking and curling on himself as hilarity makes it impossible for him to breathe.   
  
“What’s so funny?!” Sebastian blurts out.   


 

 


	7. Nocturnal Adumbrations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joseph and Sebastian test the unknown waters of what their relationship is morphing into (it's pleasant).

          “Hey,” Sebastian whispers in Joseph’s hair as he emerges from his sleep.  
“Mmh?” Joseph moans, rubbing his eyes and stretching as he pushes the blanket away from him by kicking it.  
“About last night…”  
  
Joseph closes his eyes and uses the hand rubbing his eye to cover one of his promptly-blushing cheeks.  
  
“Mmmh?”  
“When I said ‘you just gave me a boner’...”  
  
Joseph lets out a small chuckle as he extends his arm over his head, hitting the headboard.  
  
“Yeah?”  
“You started laughing uncontrollably and you couldn’t stop for at least two minutes straight… I had to go get you some water…”  
“Yeah,” Joseph giggles as he recalls the memory, seemingly light-hearted and blithe, the rising sun casting its golden light on his fair skin as it transpires through the blinds.  
“Why?” Sebastian asks, his lips involuntarily twitching in a smile as he observes his partner stretch and roll around in the folds of the sheets. “It wasn’t that funny.”  
  
Joseph’s arms extend over his head as he slides away from his pillow and arches his back to tear the stiffness away from his spine and shoulder. Sebastian observes the way his chest heaves and falls as he takes a long, deep breath, the way the hills and valleys of his toned chest and abdomen work as he straightens out and yawns, the way the ligaments of his necks extends as he throws his head back, the way his Adam’s apple bobs up and down when he mumbles, _and_ , Sebastian thinks, _and—_  
_Oh, fuck_ , he hears himself stuttering in silence, _okay, that’s very nice._ _  
_  
“I think it’s the way you said ‘massive’,” Joseph replies. “You said it like…”  
  
He clears his throat, and when he speaks again, his voice has dropped in the lows to imitate his lover’s:   
  
“‘Joseph, you’re giving me a…’”   
  
He squints to look more serious, make a circle with his index finger and thumb to accompany the exaggeratedly long word that follows.  
  
“‘... M-A-S-S-I-V-E boner’...” he articulates, voice overly deep and heavy, and chuckles immediately after.  
  
He positions himself against his pillow with an amused hum.  
  
“I don’t know,” he says. “It just sounded so funny.”  
  
Sebastian catches the hand Joseph had extended in his direction to move a wild lock away from his eyes and places a kiss on Joseph’s fingers.  
  
“Also, I had just finished getting off my chest some things I had been keeping secrets for a long, long while… it was a little hard and scary, and you reacting like that… I don’t know. It lightened up the atmosphere.”  
“I’m glad I could help,” Sebastian chuckles as he lets go of Joseph’s fingers to allow them to set back the wandering lock at its right place.   
“Yeah,” Joseph hums, “well, I’d gladly help with that boner of yours, too.”  
  
Sebastian blinks. Joseph lets out an embarrassed mumble as he turns his head away from Sebastian’s.  
  
“You really want me, don’t you?” Sebastian whispers, his voice crystal clear in the warm silence of dawn.  
  
Joseph lets out a thick sigh that almost sounds self-deprecating, yet comically grumpy.  
  
“Yeah,” he groans, throwing one leg after the other over the blanket.  
  
Sebastian rises on his elbow to look at his partner from a higher place, observing the way his eyebrows rise, how he pursed his lips in what seems disappointed but closed his eyes in resignation.  
  
Sebastian settles on his stomach as he watches Joseph reopen his eyes and look at him through heavy lashes.  
  
“Do you want us to…”  
  
Sebastian cuts himself off to find the right words.  
Suddenly, the way he is going to formulate his question seems more important than the question itself.  
He wants love to transpire through his words, he thinks, he wants Joseph to hear in his question how much he wants him. He doesn’t want to sound too bland, or too harsh, or too—  
  
“Well… yeah,” Joseph cuts his reflexion short, voice low but strangely tender. “Are you… feeling uncomfortable?” he asks, sounding genuinely worried.  
“No,” Sebastian immediately replies, suddenly worried that Joseph had caught the wrong idea, “not at all! I was just… I wondered how I could ask to sound as sincere as possible.”  
  
Joseph’s eyes widen subtly in a firmly contained elation.  
  
“I was thinking about which expression sounded better,” Sebastian says, brushing a loose lash off Joseph’s cheek, “between ‘having sex’, ‘making love’ and ‘fucking’. Which one would fit us best.”  
  
Eyes gleaming with delight, anticipation and the sharp sunlight spilling in the room like liquid gold, Joseph breathes deeply as Sebastian's mouth articulate words he thought he’d never hear.  
  
“I was considering,” Sebastian continues, his heart pounding a little louder at Joseph’s poorly concealed excitement, “that ‘having sex’ was a bit too mild, too tasteless, almost clinical, you know? And the other hand, ‘making love’ sounded too cheesy, too chaste, even if it invokes gentleness, tenderness, and love, while ‘fucking’ appeared too harsh, too crude, with no sentiments involved, but giving, at the same time an impression of… ardor, I would say. Passion.”  
  
Finally stopping from staring at the wall as he was doing during his little grammatical interlude, Sebastian looks down at Joseph.  
The younger man’s eyes are still radiant with light and warmth, visibly enamored and charmed by Sebastian’s voice, and he rolls on his side to sturdily grasp Sebastian’s face between his warm hands, before pulling himself up to plant a firm kiss on his lover’s chapped lips.  
Sebastian blinks once, taken by surprise, before returning the kiss, letting one of his hand slide in the hollow of Joseph’s back. He catches himself chuckling silently as Joseph uses his shoulder as leverage to pull himself closer to his chest, his head subtly tilting as he presses his nose against Sebastian’s cheek.  
The two of them keep their lips stubbornly closed to spare the other of their morning breath, as kind and caring lovers do.  
  
“What do you prefer?” Sebastian asks when they manage to part their mouth from the other’s.  
“I’m thinking about it,” Joseph replies as he buries his nose against Sebastian’s neck.  
  
Sebastian cradles Joseph’s body in his arms and gently pushes him back against the mattress.  
  
“I’m thinking… I want a mix… of ‘making love’ and ‘fucking’...” Joseph hums as Sebastian presses his lips to the warm patch of skin, nestled in the dip between his throat and shoulder, where Joseph’s heart beats the hardest under his skin.  
“Mmh?” Sebastian encourages him to speak his thoughts.  
“I want all the mushy, cutesy feelings, I want the pure love and all the sentimental stuff… but I also want the passion, the fervor… You know,” he finishes, a bit lower.  
  
Sebastian moans a small “I know” against the tender skin of Joseph’s neck.   
Joseph loops his arms around his shoulders and pulls him against his chest. One of his hands runs up Sebastian’s back, caresses the back of his neck with the flat of his palm, and gets lost in the mess of his brown locks.  
  
They stay like this for a little while, Sebastian breathing deeply in the crook of Joseph’s neck, one of his hands resting on his partner’s cheek as his thumb rubs the smooth plane of his skin. Their chests heave in unison and Joseph’s lips lodge small, fluttering kisses against Sebastian’s temples.   
The rising sun cradles them in its gilded glory, the light of a new day washing over their entwined bodies.  
  
“I’d love to stay like this forever, but if we don’t get up now, we’re going to be late.”  
  
  
  
          Sebastian feels strange.  
Each one of his interactions with Joseph feels different, even when they just kiss, even when they just hug.  
There seems to be this new layer to Joseph’s voice, thick and velvety, pleasant to the ears but too new to be comfortable, that Sebastian picks up when his lover speaks.  
_It’s weird,_ he thinks.  
  
He invites Joseph on his lap when they’re watching TV in the evening, lets his hands slip under his t-shirt, collect on his lips the small little moans Joseph makes when his palms meet his naked skin.  
_It’s weird,_ he thinks  
  
They’re lying in bed, Sebastian propped on his elbows to be able to kiss Joseph with no restrictions, and Joseph’s tongue is tasting his own as their mouths as sealed together, moving in sync to savor as much of the other’s lips as they can. Their moans sound a bit too loud for the quietude of the evening, accompanied by the rustling of the sheets under their bodies as they shift and switch and roll, and Sebastian can see, if he dares to peek, the way Joseph’s cock tents the front of his pants — and knowing Joseph is hard, _this_ hard, because of him, is a surreal experience.  
“Oh, fuck,” Joseph moans into his mouth. He didn’t do anything. Joseph clings to him like he’s going to drown, Sebastian secures him in his arms and holds him tight.  
It’s weird, he thinks.  
  
They’re lying in bed — or at least are supposed to be, it’s one in the morning — and their legs and arms are tangled like they want to become one. Sebastian is marking an unsettlingly crimson hickey in the crook of Joseph’s neck like a red flower blossoming on his skin. Joseph is wearing one of his tank tops, which are comically too big for him, and nothing but his underwear from the waist down — oh, actually, he kept his socks ; he said his feet are cold — while Sebastian pulled up a pair of comfortable grey jog pants but nothing over his chest.  
Their chests pressed together like they want to melt into the other — and Sebastian’s mind still sings, through the thick fog of lust, songs of blood and guts that he thought he had forgotten, and the scars of his brains threaten to burst open and spill these thoughts of wanting to climb into the other’s ribcage, dislocate his lungs, curl up next to his heart in this red, moist mess of muscles and blood, but Joseph’s fingers tightening in Sebastian’s locks or menacing to claw the warm skin of his back snaps him out of these deep dark crevices — they lose themselves in a sea of heat and moans that they each fill a little bit more.  
Joseph whines, mouth pressed into Sebastian’s hair to muffle his noises, when Sebastian moves from his collarbone to the delicate lobe of his ear and nibble playfully, following by a kiss at the juncture of his jaw.

  
“Oh, _fuck_ , Seb…”

  
Sebastian doesn’t know what to do with his hands. They travel over Joseph’s shoulders, to his neck, to his chest ; they slip beyond the border of the waistband of his underwear, grazing over the swell of his erection, and Joseph promptly bats them away.  
  
“No,” he whispers, his eyes meeting Sebastian’s and his palm guarding his crotch.  
“No?” Sebastian inquires, breathless.  
“No…” Joseph repeats, looking away.  
“Oh, okay,” Sebastian says.  
  
He loops both of his arms around Joseph, slipping them between his arched back and the mattress, to pull him to his chest. Sebastian dives onto Joseph’s lips like an owl on its prey, and Joseph hooks one of his legs around his waist.    
  
  
They’re lying in bed. It’s four in the morning and they just managed to obtain from the Chief and their team to go home. It has been a while since they had cases like that — on the run until dawn, adrenaline singing in their veins as they exchange gunshots with criminals, wiretapping abandoned barns and offering coffee to witnesses with big eyes full of nightmares and mouths full of secrets.  
It feels good.  
Sebastian runs his fingers through Joseph’s freshly-dried hair. He still has some small, superficial wounds on his cheek and forehead, but the dirt and blood were carefully washed away. Sebastian managed to get out of the fight with only a few scratches on his elbows and ribs.  
  
He loved it.   
He loved it and won’t admit it. The thrill of the chase, flirting with danger,  
not knowing who’s predator and who’s prey.  
Tightroping between life and death, a bullet maybe being the end of him,   
waiting for him at every corner.  
Joseph loved it too.  
The thrill of the chase.  
Flirting with death.  
It was like toying with what, for one,   
was the left-overs of the survival instinct he developed in STEM  
and for the other, suicidal impulses lingering like dirt that you can’t sweep away.  
Predator and prey.  
Predator and prey.  
Predator or prey.  
  
“Hey,” Joseph calls him softly, gently nudging him in the ribs. “I know what you’re thinking about. Stop thinking about it.”  
  
Sebastian blinks, suddenly pulled out of the trance he had fallen in. He finds himself, all muscles tense as if bracing for impact, and holding his breath. He forces himself to exhale slowly through his nose. His shoulder and arms are still unnaturally stiff, but at least he’s breathing.  
Joseph wiggles up to him, curling himself against his side.  
The warmth of his body gently melts Sebastian’s defenses, and when he extends his arm to cup Sebastian’s face with his hand, Sebastian’s eyes close on their own. Joseph’s thumb gently strokes the stubbly skin of his cheek and he leans into the caress.  
  
“Hey,” Joseph gently calls him again.  
  
Sebastian lazily opens his eyes to look at him. He’s closer than he was a few seconds ago.  
  
“Mmh?” Sebastian hums as an answer.  
“I was wondering,” Joseph begins, voice low, barely piercing the deep silence of the night, “if you would mind the two of us getting tested before we take things any further.”  
“‘Tested’?” Sebastian mumbles, voice heavy and thoughts thick with sleep.  
  
He blinks.  
  
“Ooh, _tested_! Sure,” he finally replies, words a bit manhandled in his mouth as exhaustion starts to liquify his bones. “Myra and I got tested before getting intimate too… nothing that needed to be taken care of,” he finishes. His voice had grown a little hoarse, croaking with a hint of pain at the mention of Myra.  
“I did an evaluation when my last relationship ended,” Joseph immediately changing subjects to distract Sebastian from the path his thoughts were going to dwell on. “I never stopped using protection with that guy, but I just wanted to make sure. And I… want to make sure now.”  
“I understand,” Sebastian says, feeling it to be visibly harder and harder to stay awake.  
“I know you wouldn’t lie to me,” Joseph urgently adds, “I just…” He sighs. “I don’t know. I’m getting hypochondriac,” he half-jokes.  
  
Sebastian chuckles. His eyelids feel heavy, so heavy, and his whole body feels like it’s sinking into the mattress.   
  
“Don’t worry,” he mutters, “I understand. When we’re done with that fucking guy, we’ll take a day off to get that done.”  
“Thank you,” Joseph whispers, pushing himself harder against Sebastian, wanting to melt into his warmth. “I just want to be safe.”  
“No problem,” Sebastian mumbles, looping his arms around Joseph and letting sleep wash over him in a wave, ready to finally pass out.  
  
Joseph nestles himself in the crook of Sebastian’s neck — his all-time favorite spot, apparently. Silence settles in the room as they settled against the other, the weak light the blossoming dawn seeping through the closed blinds.  
  
“I also _really_ wish I could have you cum inside of me, so here’s that,” Joseph murmurs, voice more breath than sound, muffled against Sebastian’s skin.  
  
Sebastian’s eyes snap open, all air leaves his lungs, and he feels like his soul left his body too.  
He is fully, _fully_ awake now — and also fully, **_fully_** erect.

 

 


	8. Night Ecstasy (Moonflower)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joseph and Sebastian get lovey-dovey at work.  
> Joseph and Sebastian get lovey-dovey in bed.  
> 

          From there, it became even weirder.  
Sebastian would go on his day, walking the thin line hanging between love and lust in his relationship with Joseph. This warmth he felt would swim from his chest to his crotch, then to his chest again, threaten to spill from his lips when they kissed.

  
          It’s three in the morning and he just borrowed the second chair at Joseph’s desk as he is putting together clues in a Microsoft document, and rests his head between Joseph’s shoulder blades.  
Joseph smiles, eyes not leaving the screen, and one of his hands reaches on the side to pat Sebastian’s arm as he loops them around Joseph’s waist.  
  
“Finding something?” Sebastian asks.  
  
Joseph sighs, stubbornly typing still.  
  
“Not really. I feel like a lot of clues will just lead us away from the right path, and we’ll end up more confused than before.”  
  
Sebastian hums in understanding, encouraging Joseph to speak some more.  
  
“At this point, I’m just waiting for the forensics’ report,” he adds, checking rapidly an opened chat he shared with one of the women from the team.  
  
Sebastian nods silently.  
He positions his head with his chin resting on Joseph’s shoulder. One of his hands comes to feel his other one.  
  
“God, you’re so tense…” Sebastian breathes as he runs his fingers on the hardness of the muscles under his skin.  
“Yeah,” Joseph sighs, “the stress is giving me a bad posture. It’ll go away once we’re done with it, though. I know some stretching exercises I can do if it starts hurting too much.”  
  
Sebastian leans back from his embrace and puts his two hands on each of Joseph’s shoulders.  
He feels the tension under his palms as he moves them carefully, curling his fingers at different pressure points, electing sharp groans from his partner.  
  
“You okay?” he asks.  
“Yeah, just… it hurts a bit.”  
“Sorry.”  
  
He resumes a slower, gentler kneading of Joseph’s strained muscles, trying to find an agreeable way to have him relax under his hands.  
He sees Joseph gently lean forward under his fingers, bowing his head down, and carefully expose his neck.  
Sebastian runs gentle fingers through Joseph’s hair as his hands move from his shoulder to his nape.  
  
“There,” he breathes, slow and caring, “does that feel better?”  
“Y-yeah,” he hears Joseph huff in response, his fingers curling into fists as his hands retract from the keyboard.  
  
Sebastian smiles.  
  
He found himself kneading and rubbing Joseph’s skin as it got warmer under his palms, Joseph moaning with particular twists of his wrists and fingers.

Joseph’s moans soon turn into what rings to Sebastian’s ears as a gentle purring and, in the estranging silence of their office, as the whole building seems veiled with silence and sleep, he unintentionally starts to snooze.  
  
  
When Sebastian’s eyes open again, he has no idea how long he was unconscious. He had dived, face first, into Joseph’s shoulder blades, and Joseph had just accepted it, one of his hands coming to rub Sebastian’s arm.  
  
“Huh,” Sebastian blurts out as he jolts up straight. “Oh fuck, sorry,” he promptly adds.  
“It’s fine,” Joseph hums, managing, to Sebastian’s awe, to keep gently petting his arm as his other hand carefully rewrote his notes.  
“How long was I out?” Sebastian asks, rubbing one of his eyes with the palm of his hand.  
“A few minutes,” Joseph answers. His voice is calm and low in the strangely silent office.  
  
Sebastian grunts as he softly pulls his arm out of Joseph’s reach to stretch. A long, loud yawn later — which made Joseph chuckle —, Sebastian is standing up, disentangling his legs from those of the chair. They almost give up under his weight as he starts to walk, but he manages to lie against the closest wall to avoid hitting the tiles. Joseph jumps out of his chair as he sees his partner stumble, but Sebastian reassures him with a sharp move of his hand.  
  
“I’m gonna get some coffee,” he announces. “It’ll allow me to stretch my legs too,” he adds.  
“Okay,” Joseph answers, still anxiously looking at him, ready to run to him if he slips again.  
  
Sebastian saunters out of the room, and Joseph goes back to his notes.

  
  
          The coffee machine had been put out of order by previous users when Sebastian walks up to it, and he needs a few minutes to rearrange it before being able to get his drink.  
Maybe a little biased due to the exhaustion catching up to him, he mutters under his breath some delightful words portraying his lovable colleagues as animals and quite wholesome body parts.  
As the second cup of coffee is being poured in the loud screeching of the machine, which sounds likely at the end of its mechanical life, Joseph walks in the room. Sebastian glances at him when he notices a silhouette approaching, his face softening into a smile as his partner’s face comes into his sight.  
Joseph walks up to him, his face soft in the honeyed light of the ceiling lamp. Sebastian notices the dark hue of the circles under his eyes, the way his left eye — the less functional of the pair — is subtly more closed than the other as weariness cradles them, the few wild locks that escaped from his tidy and neat combing, the tender smile playing at the corner of his lips — how Joseph is, on this blooming morning, in all and through all, utterly and breathtakingly gorgeous.  
Joseph turns the light off as he walks past the switch, and Sebastian can see how the lights of dawn, seeping into the room through a distant window, dance on his face and paint his skin with this light peach gold.  
He can only see how his eyes shine with the sunrise as much before Joseph has closed the gap between them to place a delicate, close-mouthed kiss, to Sebastian’s lips.  
  
“What do I have the pleasure to get that for?” Sebastian asks, a low chuckle in his voice, when Joseph finally takes a small step back.  
“You were just taking a bit longer than usual,” Joseph replies, his lips still close enough to Sebastian’s for him to feel the warmth of the words on his skin, “I was starting to wonder if anything had happened to you.”  
“Some idiots almost broke the machine,” Sebastian explains, his voice carefully low, as if not to disturb the perfect atmosphere enveloping them in its warm arms, “I had to rearrange it.”  
“I see,” his partner answers, as cautiously gentle.  
“Could you go get us two of the plastic spoons before we go back to work?” Sebastian whispers.  
“Sure,” Joseph replies.  
  
Joseph disentangles himself from the aura of Sebastian’s love that had bubbled around them, almost as warm as the newborn sunshine, and leaves for the next shelf, stepping behind Sebastian.  
Sebastian feels Joseph’s hand, ever so delicate, fleeting, almost ghostly, brush against his ass.  
He almost bucks against the table and spills coffee everywhere.  
  
  
It’s past two in the afternoon. When they got home, they were sweaty and dirty with mud and blood. The smell of metal still lingered in the palms of Sebastian’s hands as his gun had felt like it was melting in his grip as he held it with such force his knuckles had turned white.  
They’d got him.  
They’d got the guy.  
Three cars had been mobilized to surround the perimeters, multiple teams circling the crumbling and rotting building — somehow always the kind to be used as a hideout by the worst of the worst the force would run after.  
  
As Sebastian was turning the faucet on to run a bath and picking up towels and washcloths from the shelves, Joseph was carefully closing the blinds of their bedroom window, turning a fan on, and making work of that air humidifier he hadn’t touched in years.  
  
They stayed in the bath until the water ran cold, carefully rubbing the dirt and dried blood off the other’s skin with the wet washcloths. Joseph lodged multiple kisses along Sebastian’s throat as he leaned towards him, nestling himself in his partner’s arms. Sebastian ran his fingers through Joseph’s hair, removing the combing wax from his locks, before looping his arms around his partner's shoulders and pulling him closer.  
  
  
The freshly changed sheets are dry and cool as they slip under the blanket — even with the heat outside they prefered to have a blanket, as they felt safer, and more intimate, with its weight over their bodies —, and Sebastian arranges their two pairs of pillows as Joseph presses his back to his chest.  
  
“Ah, spooning, huh,” Sebastian chuckles against Joseph’s ear. “It’s been a while.”  
  
He feels Joseph’s smile against his cheek when the younger man turns his head in an attempt to kiss him. Sebastian laughs softly, tightening his grip on his body.  
  
  
Sebastian is slowly falling asleep. His lids feel heavier with each passing second, the weight of the covers over him, Joseph’s heat against him and the quiet noise of the humidifier lulling him in a comfortable slumber. As a way for greeting his partner goodnight, he brushes the palm of his hand against the curve of Joseph’s ass, just as the man had done before.  
Sebastian’s lips unconsciously twitch up in a smile when he loops his arm back around Joseph’s body and he feels himself drifting off for good.  
In his slow descent to the dream world, he is pulled awake by the feeling of Joseph’s back pressing harder against his chest, and Joseph’s ass pushing itself against his cock.  
_Oh._  
Oh, he’s awake now.  
He pushes his lids open to have a quick glance at Joseph’s face. Is he asleep? Has he done that unconsciously? Is he dreaming?  
No, Sebastian discovers.  
Under his closed eyes and his peaceful face, Joseph’s mouth is twitching in a smirk.  
  
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Sebastian whispers against Joseph’s neck, a low chuckle slipping past his lips, hard to contain.  
“Maybe so,” Joseph answers. His voice sings with tease and his smile grows wider.  
  
And he does it again.  
Slower, this time, pressing the curve of his ass from the top of Sebastian’s thighs to the lowest part of his hips in a graceful wave, guiding the beginning of quite a boner on Sebastian’s part between his buttcheeks.    
Sebastian’s body staggers under a wave of heat that washes over his body, from his groin to his chest, and he instinctively grabs Joseph’s hip. His fingers unconsciously dig in the fair, soft skin and in the less soft waistband of his underwear.  
  
“You’re teasing me, now?” Sebastian asks, voice lower than his ragged breathing, against the shell of Joseph’s ear. He knows damn well the answer but can’t seem to say anything else. His brain seems to have gone out of the window the moment Joseph gave him a boner.  
“Maybe,” Joseph repeats, humming with pleasure.    
“Are you trying to make me cum in my pants? Is that what you’re trying to do?” Sebastian asks, his voice irritatingly riant as he tries to make it menacing.  
  
Joseph’s smile stretches wider as he repeats his previous movement.  
_Oh god. He is. He is trying to have me cum in my pants._  
Sebastian buries his head in the crook of Joseph’s neck, reaffirming his grip on the younger man’s hip, desperately trying to look at least a bit in control as his face burns red and the whole lower half of his body seems incapacitated, abandoned to the mercy of Joseph’s ass.  
  
“You know, I’ve had fantasies about this,” Joseph whispers as one of his hands comes to rest on Sebastian’s hip, guiding him against the curve of his buttocks.  
“About me cumming in my pants?” Sebastian manages to ask through the numbing fog of lust Joseph put him and guide him through, trying to keep his labored breathing as low as possible.  
“No,” Joseph chuckles as he brushes his hand over Sebastian’s ribs, “about… teasing you at work,” he begins, “under your desk… Under the table during reunions… In the car…”  
  
Sebastian needs to reposition his hips a few inches back so he doesn’t feel the pressure of Joseph’s ass against his groin, which seems to make him painfully dumb as well as painfully hard. Joseph doesn’t seem to mind.  
  
“... And you would have to either take your frustration on me,” Joseph continues, visibly as aroused as he could look without shoving his hand down his pants, “or you’d have to lock yourself in a bathroom stall to jerk off — in which case I’d come knocking on the door to offer a helping hand… Or you’d have to carry your boner through the day and jerk off at home, me still in your thoughts…”  
  
Joseph lets out a dreamy sigh, and Sebastian tries to nod nonchalantly. He congratulates himself for having backed up a bit, because he’s almost afraid of how hard he is.  
He hasn’t been this hard in years.  
He had expected STEM, the following trauma and the medication to hijack his libido but, he has to acknowledge, he just needed Joseph to vaguely rub against him and tell him about his fantasies.  
Sebastian is almost scared of what this would entail. He doesn’t feel ready. He’s almost forty, he’s gone through hell and back, he’s rough and strong, he could lift a car if he really tried, and he’s petrified at the idea of what his boyfriend’s perfect ass and his own boner, at this very moment, imply.  
Joseph must have felt his inner turmoil, because he promptly turns around, repositioning himself in front of Sebastian, and cups the older man’s face in his hands.  
He doesn’t say anything. He lets the soft, chaste kiss he places on Sebastian’s lips speak for him.  
Sebastian doesn’t know if it’s the creeping feeling he still sometimes have when he thinks of the prospect of his own body, who he still dreams of being torn apart under the monsters, and the saws, and the spikes, or the fact that he hasn’t been intimate with another person in what seem like decades, or just apprehension at the idea of this new relationship he still doesn’t totally know how to navigate yet, that scares him out of sensuality this much.  
He wishes he could reflect on it now, just for a bit, but the way Joseph caresses his cheek to calm him, tender and slow, softly pulls him out of these dark waters.  
  
“We should really sleep,” Joseph murmurs against his mouth as he leans in for another kiss. “We’ll go back to this another day.”  
  
Sebastian cradles the side of Joseph’s head as their lips meet for the next tender moment.  
Joseph’s legs entangle themselves in Sebastian’s like vine on trellis, and they fall asleep like this, the sun seeping through the blinds unable to tell where Sebastian’s body ends and where Joseph’s begins.  
  


 


	9. Selton has the right to know (Mint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joseph and Sebastian get lovey-dovey in dreams.  
> Selton can't seem to mind his own business.

          Sebastian is dreaming.  
He knows he’s dreaming, because even if the room he is pictured in is acknowledged as his own by his subconscious, it looks nothing like his actual bedroom.  
The man pictured with him in the bed, however, looks like Joseph in the smallest details.  
They’re back in their previous position, with Joseph’s backside pressed insistently to Sebastian’s chest. Joseph’s upper body is slightly twisted in Sebastian’s direction, pulling him in a kiss with a hungry hand in his hair, as Sebastian’s arms hold him tighter than is humanly possible.  
Joseph’s hips, unbound by any restrictive clothing of any sorts, slither and wave with a lascivious yet holy manner against Sebastian’s.  
The curves of Joseph’s arched back and pushed-back ass follow a smooth and enticing wave that washes, over and over, on the shore of Sebastian’s body.  
Sebastian tastes mint in the nooks and crannies of Joseph’s mouth, the gates of his lips pried open with an insatiable hunger, as his tongue clashes against teeth. Joseph’s fingers curl tighter in his locks, pulling him even closer.  
One of Sebastian’s hand grips his hip, drawing Joseph closer, and closer, as if he wanted to bury him in his chest.  
Sebastian’s ears ring with Joseph’s moans and his labored breathing, his whole body seeming to vibrate under Joseph’s ministrations like the strings of a cello, played under a graceful bow handled by the most delicate and expert of hands.  
Joseph’s legs entwine and hook themselves on Sebastian’s, desperate for an anchor, as he pushes his backside against Sebastian’s thighs in a feverish dance.  
Sebastian feels the front of his pants get tighter with each passing second and each thrust of his helpless hips against the perfect contours of Joseph’s ass, with each brush of Joseph’s hands guiding his hardening cock in the furrow of his buttocks ; his grip on Joseph’s hip tightens and he pulls him closer, closer, burying his face in the crook of his neck, where Joseph’s heart beats frantically.  
  
“Sebastian,” he hears Joseph moan, “Sebastian…”  
  
He knows this voice, he knows this thick veil of warmth and pleasure — it would drape Joseph’s words in these little sessions of his, which seem so long ago now…  
  
Joseph’s body shifts sharply against the mattress as he buries his face in his pillow, pressing his chest against the sheet and pulling Sebastian to reposition himself over him. His hand avidly searches for Sebastian’s, grabbing it feverishly, almost afraid, and pulls it to his face to kiss it with fervor.    
Sebastian readjusts himself over Joseph’s back, his chest and his lips getting slightly wet with sweat as he kisses the hollow between his shoulder blades, and buries his head against Joseph’s throat. He feels the throbbing pulse singing under Joseph’s skin as it drums against his cheek and inhales, as if he wanted to get intoxicated, the citrus scent of Joseph’s Cologne — well, what he knows to be citrus, for it is a dream and he cannot smell.  
When he starts rutting, with the desperation of a wounded beast, against Joseph’s backside, he thinks he can read a word running on Joseph’s lips over and over — or what his brain registers as a word, anyways —, and his mouth spells, Sebastian thinks, “come, come”, and when he almost does, he only comes awake.    


 

Sebastian’s eyes crack open with a dry, sticky noise. Vaguely registering his position, he realizes his mouth is open, which means he has probably drooled, and his hips are angled strangely far from Joseph’s body nestled in his arms, which means his subconscious probably made him wiggle away from his partner to spare him uncomfortable dream dry-humping.  
  
As he retrieves all of his senses, taking in how the smallest and lowest lights peek through the blinds, the way the sheets are warm now, the texture of Joseph’s skin covered in a thin layer of sweat from the heat under the blankets, he feels a wet spot on his pillow, near his mouth, which is quite normal, and a wet spot in his underwear, near his dick, which is less.  
  
  
Sebastian jolts up from under the blankets, eyes wide open as he rubs the back of his palm over his dry lips. He blinks rapidly, bewildered, as his gaze shifts from his underwear to Joseph, still sleeping soundly, on his side of the mattress.  
_Oh shit? Oh shit…,_ Sebastian doesn’t even dare to whisper.  
He tiptoes back to the mattress, inspecting the drool on his pillowcase, and a short laugh escapes his lips.  
_Oh… Oh god._  
  
He lets his gaze wash over a still soundly sleeping Joseph, his original embarrassment replaced by an almost childish amusement. His laugh grows slightly louder, making his chest fill with warmth, and he covers his mouth so his voice doesn’t wake his partner up.  
His mind jumps from his current state to his previous dream to Joseph’s almost crude enticing of the night — well, morning — before. It’s a weird atmosphere that holds him in its arms on this warm afternoon, his spirit waltzing from a sense of placid comfort under the warm sun, to the teenage hilarity of hormone-driven dreams, to a timid spike of, well, lust…  
  
Sebastian loves it.  
It’s new, but strangely familiar.  
It’s exciting, but comforting enough.  
It feels like Joseph, in all and through all.  
  
Sebastian trots to his sleeping partner’s side and offers a tiny peck on his forehead after carefully brushing some loose locks off his skin, as Joseph’s brown eyes peer from behind his lashes.  
Sebastian hears Joseph mumble a low, but sweet and loving “good morning”, his voice hoarse and thick with sleep. One of his hands emerges from under the covers to give his cheek a light caress.  
  
“I’ll be right back,” Sebastian whispers as he presses his head into Joseph’s palm, “I’m just using the shower first today.”  
  
Joseph responds with a deep rumble and blinks once, slowly, like cats do when they’re happy. Sebastian offers one more kiss in the mess of black locks and promptly walks out of the room, trying to use his hands as a cover for the incriminating spot on his underwear.

 

Sebastian lets the water cascade onto his shoulders and wash the atmosphere of his dream, still sticking to his skin like his own jizz to his underwear.  
Using his palms to collect some of the water and splashing it on his face, rubbing his hands on his cheeks and slightly dry lips, Sebastian smiles at his own situation. He observes how the water runs down his chest, his waist, his legs, closes his eyes as the delighted smile of a teasing Joseph runs through his mind.  
Sebastian lets out a small chuckle as he thinks about the night once more.  
  
He feels like he’s seventeen again, having wet dreams about boyfriends, pheromone-scented dreams and hiding in the bathroom to think about it all…  
Except he is not seventeen, and he is not hiding — he’s daydreaming about Joseph’s bold moves, and the way his voice sounded when he teased him, and how he smiles and laughs about being dirty.  
Sebastian watches Joseph’s smile unfold behind his closed lids one more time, smiles at the picture painted so close to him. He takes a quick glance at the ceiling when he opens his eyes, takes a quick glance at the clock, a quick glance at himself — and a quick hold of his cock. 

 

          Sebastian finishes scribbling his note on a tiny piece of paper and slowly walks to Joseph’s bedside table to lay it next to his neatly folded glasses.  
“I’m in the kitchen”, the note simply reads.  
Joseph grabs one of Sebastian’s hands as he turns around to walk away, and offers a mushy peck on his knuckles.  
Sebastian laughs softly and rubs an enamored hand on Joseph’s cheek before tiptoeing out of the room.  


 

          When Joseph comes out of the bathroom, still in the process of drying and combing his own hair, Sebastian is carefully placing toasts and fruits on plates and bowls. When Joseph’s silhouette appears in the corner of his eye, Sebastian looks up from the peaches and grapes to welcome his partner, waltzing in surrounded by the scent of citrus and sage.  
Sebastian’s lips curl in an involuntary smile, and Joseph imitates him, eyes half-lidded in a soft and comforting gaze, his entire expression sending warmth to Sebastian’s cheeks.  
Sebastian trots to him, fingers still wet and slightly sticky with peach juice, and leans over oh-so-slightly to offer his lips to Joseph’s smile.  
Joseph takes gentle hold of his face in his hands, letting himself be gently nudged by Sebastian’s subtly hungry lips, feeling his carefully-concealed want in the way his head tilts to kiss him deeper.  
As they part, their lips offering to their ears this delightful wet noise, Sebastian can see Joseph’s lips curled into a softly taunting smirk.  
  
“What did I do to earn this?” Joseph chuckles, voice lower than a whisper.  
“Nothing,” Sebastian answers in the same tone, his words warm against Joseph’s mouth, their lips still so close they could kiss again right there if they wanted to, “I just had a very good dream…”  
  
And in Sebastian’s tone, and in the shine in his eyes, and in the curl of his smirk, Joseph knows what he means.  
They exchange a knowing, loving gaze under which pierces a poorly contained desire — Joseph’s eyes dart to Sebastian’s lips and, he’s pretty sure, to his dick too.  
  
“I just wanted to thank you for that,” Sebastian adds, lips brushing longingly over his partner’s.  
“You’re more than welcome,” Joseph answers, a delicate hunger toying with his voice as the tip of his tongue runs over his lip in an almost animalistic sight.  
  


 

          That particular morning seems to have awakened something within Sebastian in a way he finds… almost funny.  
Joseph brings out in him feelings he thought he had lost — in the fire, then in hell, then in the depths of his own emotional scars —, so meticulously teasing, charmingly taunting in ways he had never imagined he would see his partner.  
  
Sebastian tries to observe a strict “No Boners At Work” policy, which he inevitably fails to meet everytime Joseph does anything but glance in his direction — it’s the most ridiculous and delightful things that has ever happened to him, he thinks each time.  
  
Joseph walks past him at the coffee machine and runs a furtive palm along the curve of his ass when no one is watching, making Sebastian spill his drink the first five times (now, he reciprocates, and the way Joseph melts and almost spills in a moaning mess gets him every time).  
  
“You’re teasing me,” they whisper in each other’s ear, and the other does nothing but shrugs, a poorly concealed smirk toying with the corner of their lips.  
  
  
They circle around each other, dancing around their shared desire — there is something pure and warm in the way they flirt as they never got to, but also something Sebastian can’t help but feel sinking in the space between his lungs, something almost scared (not _scary_ , _scared_ ), something painfully shy that refuses to comes out of hiding.  


 

Every time a hand brushes a lock, caresses a patch of naked skin, something makes Sebastian’s throat feel tighter.  
Oh, he’s terrified.  
He’s terrified and angry at his own fear.  
This dread lies deep in his chest, and even when his blood sings with love and lust under Joseph’s subconsciously considerate kiss, it doesn’t go away.  
God, it never goes away.  
  


 

          Coming back to work, Sebastian and Joseph receive praise from their colleagues. The Chief pats Sebastian’s back with a strength that makes him feel like his shoulder blades are going to cave in, and the laugh he lets out at her enthusiasm trebles and breaks into hiccups as all of the air in his lungs is patted out of him.

Still, there lingers between the people working here unspoken, and almost unacknowledged words from when Sebastian learned his truth — the image of the man, so large of shoulders and loud of voice, breaking into a crying mess has left its mark in his colleagues’ minds. They don’t say, they don’t speak, most of the time, they don’t even think about it…  
Now, they throw quick glances at him when Joseph walks into the room, and their little eyes thirst for a peek at the two men’s true relationship.  
  
Sebastian catches Selton, one day, being part of the little spying team, his little brown eyes inquisitive and intrusive. They lock eyes, and the man goes trotting away in shame.  
  


 

        After a productive morning of pissing in cups and having their blood drawn in tiny little vials, Sebastian and Joseph still drove to the police department, a call reaching them from the forensics department.  
  
“Nothing huge we’re pretty sure,” the scientist on the phone informed them, “it’d just be one more piece to put in that guy’s file for the trial. We just need you to come check it out and see where it fits. That can wait a few days if you’re not available now.”  
  
Sebastian still has his own words honeying his tongue as he replied to the nurse’s question with a clear, and almost slightly too loud, “I plan on becoming sexually active with my current boyfriend.”  
  
Joseph was smiling when he saw him exiting the room with a bandage on his arm, this quietly delighted glee shining with the promise of something new. Sebastian almost pressed him into the car seat to devour his mouth with the hungriest kisses he thought he could ever hold back when the phone rang.  
  
  
“I’ll check it out,” Joseph said, tapping his notebook in his pocket. “Just so I can write about it.”  
“I’ll wait here,” Sebastian says, arranging papers on his desk, flipping the new sheets he just was given,  
  
With a nod, Joseph walks out of their office.  
Sebastian looks at him, vestless in this building for the first time in what seems to be forever, a checkered shirt carefully tucked in his black pants in a delightful mix of elegance and decontraction.  
Sebastian’s eyes drift to his partner’s ass as he reaches the door, and he’s pretty sure Joseph notices, as he offers a taunting swing of his hips.

  
  
Sebastian spends the next few minutes pacing in his office. His gaze washes over his desk and the rest of the mess he still hasn’t tidied up, and his mind brings up Joseph’s voice, warm as honey and clear as sun to his ears, going “I’d also have the usual work fantasies of you inviting me under your desk to… be your private assistant…”  
  
Sebastian bumps crotch first into the table, quickly but painfully dismissing his incoming boner.  
  
  
When he has regained at least half of his composure — and sensation in his cock —, he quickly turns to the bay window opening on the corridor as a familiar yet unnerving figure appears in the corner of his eye.  
Sebastian jumps onto his heels and prances to the door, opening it with a swift and annoyed gesture.  
Selton is here, looking on the verge of pissing himself in fear but showing a delighted smile like he had just heard about the latest gossip. Sebastian doesn’t even have the time to ask him what he wants that Selton blurts out:  
  
“... are you and Oda, like…?”  
  
It’s the same question that he asked before Sebastian and Joseph were even dating… in fact, Sebastian remembers, it’s this particular question that sent Sebastian in an afternoon of questioning his relationship and eventually ended up on them kissing for the first time on the very same day.  
Selton awaits his answer with shining eyes, like he wants to be the first person to know about this juicy, juicy scoop.  
_Hey, he deserves to know_ , Sebastian thinks, his own thoughts making him chuckle.  
  
“We are together,” he carefully enunciates. “In fact, we are thinking about having sex, _fucking_ if you will, maybe _lots_ of sex. I plan on making him come so hard the whole neighborhood will know my name.”  
  
Selton apparently stopped breathing. His mouth is hanging open in the same smile he asked Sebastian with, but his eyes are wide open and his whole body seems to be frozen in time.  
Joseph waves at Sebastian from the other side of the corridor.  
  
“If you’ll excuse me,” Sebastian says, a placid yet mocking smile painted on his whole face.  
  
With a hand, he gently pushes Selton out of his way, and trots to Joseph.  
Joseph watches him arrive with a quirked eyebrow and a confused smile. Sebastian restrains himself from kissing him right there and just follows him calmly to the door.  
  


 

          Sebastian is carefully monitoring the heat under the pan when he hears Joseph’s key in the lock. With a quick glance at the clock — 7:46 —, Sebastian makes a quick calculation of the time Joseph’s errands took after his therapy session.  
  
“I’m home,” he hears Joseph’s voice come from the hallway, and the sound of a coat and shoes being discarded reach Sebastian’s ears.  
“Welcome home,” he replies, turning the burner off as he wiggles a wooden spoon into the mix of spices, pasta, and chicken.  
  
Joseph walks to the kitchen table, arms carrying multiple bags stamped with colored logos. He sets them on the surface with a sigh of relief and starts rummaging through them, picking out smaller packages in a fuss of crumpling plastic.  
  
“Okay,” Joseph begins, “so I bought fruits,” he enunciates as he lays a brown paper bag full of apples on the table, “I got us these,” he adds as he places two small bags of coffee beans next to it, “I got us that,” he adds as he manages to find enough space on the table for a pack of six water bottles, “I got us these two,” he adds as he slides two small pockets containing their prescriptions pills over the table, “and I got us…”  
  
A louder, sharper sound, like the noise hard plastic makes when it is slammed onto a hard surface, makes Sebastian suddenly focus on what is happening, and his gaze follow the line of Joseph’s arm, from his shoulder to his hand, to fall on the palm of his hand holding his latest pick.  
A 250ml, hard plastic bottle with, under a brand name with a bland logo, the words “silicone-based personal lubricant” flashing white on black — enhanced by a very subtle “anal” overhanging the description.  
Sebastian looks at the bottle. Then he looks at Joseph. Joseph doesn’t look at him. He looks at the bottle. He looks at Joseph. He looks at the bottle. His gaze follows this short path between the bottle and Joseph’s face a few more times until one of these two starts blushing (it’s Joseph).  


 

 


	10. À Fleur de Peau (Bellflower, Églantine Rose)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian has some unresolved issues.

          Joseph goes to fetch their test results on an early Saturday morning. He comes home slightly flushed from the surprisingly cold air of this newborn morning and hands Sebastian his paper, sealed in a white envelope.  
They each find themselves on a side of the room as they open the letter, turning their back on their partner, as if they felt like they had something to hide.  
Following the sound of paper tearing is a careful and almost anxious silence… then a faint sigh of relief.  
  
“Well, that’s what I thought,” Joseph begins. “Nothing on my end.”  
  
He turns to Sebastian as he doesn’t hear him reply. Worried about his lover, Joseph makes a step towards him.  
Sebastian looks at him from over his shoulder, and Joseph has barely the time to see the flash of hunger in the hazel of his eyes before Sebastian runs to him, reaps him off his feet and holds him up against a wall to kiss him.  
  
“I see,” Joseph chuckles between two ardent purses of Sebastian’s lips, “I see.

 

          Sebastian wakes up with his skin itching from something is trying to crawl out of closed wounds. It’s five in the morning when he wakes up a first time, sitting upright, sweat making his skin too cold and too tight.  
_Oh god, what is it now…_  
He doesn’t remember the nightmare that came before, only the deafening silence that follows, and this itching, biting, suffocating feeling of something using his skin as a coat and his old scars as exit doors.  
His fingers, twitching and dry, slowly climb up to his face and rub with a muffled terror pounding at his ears the scar running over his lip.  
_It hurts_ , he thinks.  
_It hurts and it stopped hurting years ago._  
There’s something cold in this room, in this body of his on this dimly-lit morning, that not even Joseph’s even breathing manages to soothe.

 

          They itch and they hurt. They itch and they hurt. They itch and they hurt.  
Sebastian is painfully aware of his body, of how tight his shirt is, of how every individual strand of hair on his legs bites at his skin like needles.  
_It must be from the nightmare_ , he thinks, _it must be…_  
He tries to find recollection of the night in the corners of his mind, but nothing sparks a light — the knife that reopened the wound hides deeper under his skin, and in the search for it, he, oh, he clawed at scabs he should have let alone…  
_Oh, what have I done now…_  
  
He let it out, he let it wild.  
It runs and it pours.  
  
His heartbeat bangs at his temples like fists on a locked door and the scar that runs on his brow stings, and stings, and stings like a fresh cut under hot water, and the pain flows to his eyes and old memories flash in front of them, and he sees himself, he sees the bar counter coated in alcohol he spilled, he hears the bartender’s voice, he sees the glass — half empty? half full? He’s wholly empty yet full of sadness at the same time —, and his head drops forward as if someone had beheaded him, and he sees the glass, and —  
The scar on his lip flashes a spark of sharp, blinding pain, and Sebastian jumps out of his chair, knocking his knee on the wood of his desk, his hand instinctively clapping itself over the wound as if he expected blood to pour out. The located twinge grows dull, as if muffled, as it expands from the side of his mouth to his cheek and chin, forcing his eye to shut as the pain takes his entire face.  
_It wasn’t like this when that happened, it wasn’t like this —_  
  
The ache jumps from his lip to his brow, still staining the previous spot with a deep dark strain, and soon all of the scars on his body seems to be singing the same song of despair and hurt, making his skin burn and ache everywhere a wound ever was.  
Sebastian’s hands fly to cover his lip, his brow, his ribs, his hip, every inch of skin that hurts — but it _all_ hurts, it all hurts.  
  
Sebastian curls on himself as his face throbs with a pain he doesn’t even remember ever feeling. Something, someone ( _himself_?) reopened some deep dark wounds during the night, and now blood and memories are pouring out of nicks on his skin, so sour, so astringent, gnawing at his flesh like they would gnaw at his insides in flashbacks-fueled and panic-drowned nights. He bumps into a wall, feels the scars running on his shoulder hissing in pain.  
  
“Sebastian?” a familiar, concerned voice rings to his ears, muffled by white noise and the insistent, omnipresent, ominous thumping of his erratic heartbeat against his temples.  
  
Sebastian can see, in the blur of static pain, his partner’s silhouette running to him and crouching at his side, and he feels his hands be batted away by gloved, careful fingers.  
Pain doesn’t feel so stinging anymore, but his entire body pulsates with a bloodstream turned astringent and thick — he feels almost numb, his limbs heavy and unresponsive, the scars on his face still burning with the added bitterness of memories resurfacing like bad nausea ( **the countertop, the bartender, the glass, the glass, the glass** ).  
  
Joseph’s hands find the anesthetized planes of his cheeks and suddenly Sebastian’s is awake, face anchored in Joseph’s grasp ; he feels the air in his lungs again, and it burns, it burns too — he desperately reaches for Joseph’s arm to hold himself up and Joseph loops a reliable arm around his waist, pulling him closer, securing him in his embrace.  
  
“Sebastian,” Joseph asks, his voice barely a whisper as if his words could hurt, “Seb, what’s going on? What’s going on, tell me.”  
  
Sebastian opens his mouth to speak only for a pained whine to slip past his lips, spilling out with a drop of drool.  
  
“It’s bad,” he finally manages to articulate, “it’s just so bad…”  
"What is? Seb, what is bad? What started this?” Joseph asks again, his voice so kind, so gentle and caring as he guides Sebastian’s head to rest in the crook of his neck that it almost makes Sebastian hurt more.  
“I don’t know,” he mumbles, “I don’t know… it just got to me…”  
  
Joseph gently disengages his lover’s from his embrace to look at him.  
“My scars hurt like hell, Joseph,” Sebastian blurts out as he winces, “they hurt like they’re fresh and someone poured alcohol on them.”  
“Why is this?” Joseph tries to encourage him to tell him more. “What triggered this?”  
“I don’t know,” Sebastian mumbles again.  
  
It got to him like an acid reflux, like finally throwing up after a nausea that busied a mind the whole day.  
_It’s the nightmare,_ he tries to reason, _I dreamed of something that brought these up._  
  
It doesn’t leave when Joseph obtains permission to bring him home, it doesn’t leave when Joseph drives them back to their shared apartment — and when Joseph asks to see them close, his delicate, naked fingers reaching for Sebastian’s skin, Sebastian’s whole body screams a wounded and pathetic “ **don’t touch me!** ” as he forces himself away from his partner.  
  
  
         He feels like he’s hiding now, his whole mind echoing with an inner debate like a crypt full of screams and chants, clutching the heavy blankets around himself.  
Oh, he feels disgusting  
  
The nightmare, whatever it was, and the memories flashing in front of his eyes (over and over and over and over — the countertop, the bartender, the glass, the glass) clash and push and tear at this deeply ingrained, powerful and pure desire (for Joseph, for the two of them to be close, and closer).  
The two thoughts fight like circus beasts in a Roman arena and, if none of them are winning, both claw and bite and the sand is running red.  
There is a thought, a particular thought, that brews and steeps and rings to his ears, born from poorly-processed grief, and guilt, and hatred, and fear, and, and —  
and Joseph has walked to him and his eyes, as Sebastian catches them on his skin, cradle in these dark irises something so loving, so compassionate and kind, and so worried, that Sebastian pains to swallow his own thought — a low, muffled “I don’t deserve him”.  
  
His knuckles had turned white from the strength he had held onto the blanket with, and when Joseph’s kind and warm fingers gently pull the over away, his entire arm hurts from the strain.  
Joseph lays a hand in the crook of his elbow, pulling him close but sitting closer.  
  
“Please,” he asks, his voice low, gentle, and — even if Sebastian hears he tries to hide it — hurt, “tell me what’s on your mind.”  
  
Joseph comes to sit even closer to Sebastian, looping an arm around his waist — and where Joseph’s body meets his on his ribs, an old scar hurts.  
Sebastian fidgets with the sheets that wrinkle under his thigh, and when he parts his lips to part, emotions start pouring out like rainwater from a gargoyle’s mouth.  
  
“I don’t want you to see them,” he manages to articulate.  
“What do you mean?” Joseph asks, less truly wondering than trying to get Sebastian to speak about his feelings.  
  
“I don’t want you to see them. The last person I was with, I didn’t have them, I was still presentable, I still looked like a man,” Sebastian starts spilling out, and Joseph knows, instinctively, what he’s talking about — his eyes dart to the scar crossing Sebastian’s lip, and Sebastian instinctively covers it.  
  
Sebastian takes a deep, shaky breath.  
  
“Now, I’m just… a bunch of scars stacked on top of each other. A pile of scars threatening to burst out at any moment, cigarette and whiskey-scented.”  
  
His hands involuntarily fly to his shoulder, then to his hip.  
  
“They’re ready to bust open at any moment — and they just did, didn’t they? Open and raw like on the first day.”  
  
He turns to Joseph, ready to tell his truth, but his partner’s caring and strangely calm eyes kill the words on his lips and air leaves his lungs.  
  
When he manages to speak again, his voice is barely a whisper, hurt and, as he will never admit, scared.  
“You’ve dealt with them enough, Joseph. You’re the one who brought me back to your place after I dived headfirst onto a glass of whiskey and had it break under the weight of my skull, a shard slicing my entire upper lip and blood pouring all over the countertop, then onto your shirt, then into your car, then all over your bathroom floor when you tried to stop the bleeding.”  
  
He searches Joseph’s eyes for a hint of surrender or abdication that would validate this burning feeling making his lungs feel too heavy for his ribs… but finds nothing but a gentle, almost elegant, and patient care.  
  
“You don’t want to see them any more,” Sebastian breathes, hoping Joseph will believe his own twisted, wounded thinking.  
  
But Joseph doesn’t. Joseph looks at him with the same carefully crafted intensity, this perfect mix of love, care and gentle disapproval.  
  
“Who says that?” he says, and Sebastian’s entire thinking comes crumbling like a card castle.  
“What...? what do you mean…” Sebastian asks, a nervous laugh jumping in his throat.  
“Who says that I don’t want to see, or deal with your scars?” Joseph asks, his voice clear as crystal and solid as rock.  
  
Sebastian blinks in confusion.  
“Sebastian,” Joseph begins after a small, tenderly dismissive sigh, “if I didn’t want to deal with your scars, I wouldn’t have let you into my home that day… I wouldn’t have helped you apply the gauze these two others and, more than anything… I wouldn’t have started dating you.”  
Sebastian dares an unsteady glance at his partner’s face. Their eyes meet and Joseph holds his gaze, firm, resolute and almost… proud.  
Sebastian barely dares to blink, afraid to shatter the connection.  
Joseph rearranges his legs onto the mattress, finding a more comfortable and more intimate position against his partner’s side, and takes careful and gentle hold of Sebastian’s face to bring them face to face.  
  
“I love you, Seb,” he says, and his gaze shines less with the golden streaks of his irises than with his tenacious and almost stubborn affection. “I love you, and when I’m kissing you, I kiss the scar on your lip too. I love you, and when I hold onto you when we’re passed out in bed, I hold onto the scars on your rib and your shoulder too.”  
  
Joseph gently leans into Sebastian’s body, pressing his face against the lower part of Sebastian’s, letting his partner’s lips rest on the bridge of his nose.  
  
“ _I love you_ , Seb, and when I imagine you making love to me, I imagine you with all of your scars too.”  
  
Sebastian’s breath hitches in his throat and Joseph gently pushes his lips to Sebastian’s stubbly chin.  
Joseph slowly leans back, his hands still firmly cupping his lover’s face in warm palms, to look at him in the eyes.  
Sebastian’s breath comes out heavy, thick with emotion, and he catches in Joseph’s irises this limitless and unfathomable adoration contained behind his straight face. He opens his mouth to speak, but only air comes out and Joseph smiles as Sebastian’s choked breath washes over his lips.  
  
“Would you let me kiss them ?” Joseph asks, his voice careful and low, almost just for himself to hear, as if he was afraid to scare Sebastian away with too loud of words.  
  
Sebastian fetches what is left of his voice from the pit of his chest and whispers :  
  
“Yeah…”  
  
Joseph offers a warm smile and his hands carefully shift from Sebastian’s cheeks to further towards his ears, finding a better hold on him to pull him closer. He presses their lips together, almost shy in his touch.  
Slowly leaning back, Joseph lets his hands follow the curve of Sebastian’s jaw on both sides of his face, letting them hug the shape of his neck as they drift to his shoulders, stopping where the collarbone meets the throat with his fingers nested under the fabric of Sebastian’s open shirt.  
“Can I take your shirt off ?” Joseph asks, attentive and cautious.  
  
Sebastian manages an unconvincing nod. Joseph, slightly apprehensive at his lover’s hesitance, starts to retract his fingers in a fist and pull them off Sebastian’s skin.  
  
“You can,” Sebastian blurts out, the absence of Joseph’s touch on his skin hurting more than the contrary. “ _Please_ ,” he adds, lower, almost a plea in his croaking voice.  
  
Joseph lets his fingers reach for Sebastian’s skin again, caressing the curve his throat draws when it reaches the hardened plane of his shoulder, and carefully slips his fingers under the first button Sebastian had fastened.  
With a careful twist of his index and thumb, Joseph lets it loose. He carefully pushes the shirt open wider and lets his fingers trace the line of hair running in the middle of Sebastian’s chest until they reach the next button.  
  
Little by little, Joseph pushes the shirt out of in front of Sebastian’s torso, and as his deft fingers pry open the last button, he rearranges his position on his knees, facing Sebastian, almost slipping into his lap.  
Sebastian cannot dare to look at him.  
  
Joseph’s hands run back up Sebastian’s chest, touch light as a feather as they run over the slight curve of Sebastian’s pectorals. They take hold of each side of Sebastian’s open collar and, as Joseph finds a more comfortable and intimate seat in the space left by Sebastian’s crossed legs, pull the fabric off his shoulders.  
It’s slow, it’s deliberate, and Sebastian can barely hear Joseph’s breathing — or his own — over the erratic drumming of his heartbeat at his ears. He watches Joseph, eyes focused and riveted on his task, almost drowned in his own thoughts as he doesn’t hear Sebastian whisper his name. Sebastian lets the clothing slide off his arms and fall behind his back, Joseph’s hands pushing it gracefully. As they hear the soft ruffle of the shirt falling out of their sight, Sebastian’s thoughts start running wild.  
  
The moment is coming. The moment is coming. Half of him wants to jump out of this bed and cover his body back in shame, and the other wants, desires, longs for Joseph’s promise of something sweet.  
His heartbeat gets louder with each thump and he’s pretty sure it’s the only thing Joseph can hear.  
Joseph acts as if he doesn’t.  
  
He loops his right arm around Sebastian’s waist, his hand finding the small of his back, and the other slips between Sebastian’s right arm and side, bending upward so his hand rests upon the higher spot of Sebastian’s upper arm.  
Sebastian watches him slowly lean into his chest, blood pounding against the walls of his skull, and fear and love and want and this insatiable craving running like wild beasts in the cage of his ribs.  
Joseph’s head cautiously drops forward, and as his fingers find the higher plane of Sebastian’s shoulder, his lips find the scar carved into there.  
  
There are three of them, actually, making a whole. They look like they were left by someone who tried to claw Sebastian’s arm off — and they actually are.  
Sebastian’s memories of this day come knocking into his mind and burst into it like very rude guests, and the painfully crude pictures claw at his lids — the ambush, staying so low, so quiet, getting up, on tiptoes, gun in hand, breath held, and the silhouette jumping onto his back, hand gloved, tearing into his clothes, the pain sending a wave of shock down his entire spine — Sebastian forces his eyes shut, then open again, his free arm clasping himself around Joseph’s shoulders to cling onto him.  
  
“I’m here,” he hears Joseph breathe against his skin, “I’m right here…”  
  
Finding composure in their shaky embrace, Sebastian manages to get himself under control, breath still unstable, heart still erratic, but he buries his face in the crook of Joseph’s neck as his lover holds him closer.  
  
Joseph’s lips run down each of the scars, millimeter by millimeter, soft and cautious purses of his lips in calming kisses ringing to Sebastian’s ears and divinely warming his skin.  
Sebastian’s eyes are stubbornly shut as he feels as if he were to see this bottomless adoration in the brown of Joseph’s eyes, it would probably kill him.  
He feels Joseph move a bit in his hold, the warmth of his lips leaving Sebastian’s shoulder to fly to his other arm, where a scar from meeting the sharp and rusty edge of a piece of metal in a warehouse draws a pink line in the curve of his triceps.  
Joseph’s mouth meets his skin, and Sebastian feels it every so slightly rougher than the previous kiss, as if Joseph was driven by some sort of desperation — and he is, Sebastian comes to think, in the way Joseph grabs him, pull him, presses his parted lips against his naked skin, he is.  
When Joseph pulls himself back straight, untangling himself from Sebastian’s hold his eyes are shining with determination, pupils blown wide, lips glistening from nothing but devotion. _It feels almost scary_ , Sebastian thinks. Scary but so, so right.  
  
Joseph puts a cautious hand in the middle of Sebastian’s chest.  
  
“Could you lay back ?” he asks, still ever so deliberate in his words and calm in his moves, watching for the slightest bit of discomfort on Sebastian’s face.  
  
Sebastian lets arms carry his weight as he props them behind his back to support himself as he lays back.  
Joseph carefully shifts his position, hands coming to rest on each side of Sebastian’s thighs, and Sebastian catches his glance slip to the old wound on his ribs.  
  
“What did you find even remotely attractive in me ?” he asks, voice hoarse, pushing them in lengthy discussions as he desperately tries to hide under Joseph’s agonizingly tender deeds.    
  
Joseph looks up from Sebastian’s body and slowly blinks.  
“Why do you suddenly wonder ?” he asks, still no anger to detect in his voice.  
“I’ve been selfish and incompetent for the time we’ve been partners,” Sebastian promptly begins, words pouring out of his mouth like rain from a storm too long ran from, “I’ve put us in danger multiple times on the field by being stubborn and hot-headed, I’ve pushed you away, over and over, when I was drunk, I refused to face my problems and hated you for trying to help me keep my job… I’ve insulted you when I was piss drunk and puked at least twice on your floor.”  
“Three times, actually,” Joseph corrects him, and Sebastian’s chest hurts with the fond smile painting Joseph’s face with light.  
“Three times...” Sebastian repeats, bewildered at his partner’s reaction. “What do you even see in me…?”  
  
Joseph observes Sebastian’s face with wide, inquiring eyes, pupils drifting from the grimace the man’s lips twitch in, to the way his gaze evades as he looks on the side.  
Joseph then shifts on his knees and crawls close to Sebastian, his hands carefully reaching up for the sides of Sebastian’s face.  
  
“Do you ask from a place of self-awareness or self-deprecation ?” Joseph asks as he inches his face closer to Sebastian’s.  
  
Sebastian blinks in the cup of his hands.  
  
“I… I don’t really know,” he admits, and the way Joseph blinks gently as the admission makes his heart leap in his throat.  
  
His mind is longing for appreciation, for acceptance, for words that would soothe wounds that have scabbed years ago but still itch.  
  
“I don’t think the stubborn asshole,” Joseph begins, and his voice tickles Sebastian’s lips with how close their faces are, “the selfish, hot-headed, rude, indelicate Sebastian could ever pull my heart away from the caring Seb, kind and compassionate under his rough exterior, from the Seb who dedicated his life to putting other people’s needs above his own to ensure the safety of the people in his life, who wants so much for his close ones that he’s willing to remove himself from the equation if this means they can be at peace, who is resilient and such a sweetheart when you managed to find your way under his shell… and since these two Sebastians are the same,” Joseph breathes in an almost-kiss, “... I’d say they make a good cohabitation.”  
  
Sebastian doesn’t hear the shocked, pathetic little sound that escapes his throat as it tightens in a spasm, but he feels a tear running down his cheek and slipping over the hills his skin makes as he smiles in a stunned bliss.  
Joseph reaffirms his grasp on his cheeks as Sebastian’s arms start slightly trembling in shock and pull him in a comforting and, on his side too, almost desperate embrace.  
_Oh_ , Sebastian thinks in the midst of emotions, _oh, this was it_.  
Joseph’s voice brought reassurance in the form of pure, unfiltered love. To its melody, Sebastian’s chest almost bursts with emotion, reassurance, comfort, affirmation, boundless acceptance and, he feels in Joseph’s embrace, forgiveness, lifting a particular kind of hell off his shoulders. He feels himself emerge from years of piled-up unspoken guilt, of unacknowledged feelings and avoided paths, Joseph brushing the metaphorical dried blood off his shoulders with a graceful sweep of his naked hand.  
  
Sebastian tightens his grip on Joseph who laughs, more devotion than amusement in the way his lips curl in a smile, and loops his arms around Sebastian’s naked chest.  
  
“Sorry for all that,” Sebastian finally says once he has regained composure. “This was quite the moment.”  
“Anything you need, Seb,” Joseph answers from the crook of Sebastian’s neck. He starts to slowly lean back to add: “And about insulting me when you were drunk… If I listened to everything you said while under the influence, we would be dead… or married.”  
  
Sebastian promptly looks away, embarrassed as in own past words, and Joseph laughs gleefully.  
  
"I feel like a totally different person when I’m with you like this,” Sebastian whispers.  
“In a good or a bad way ?” Joseph asks as he puts a loose lock back behind Sebastian’s ear.  
  
Sebastian thinks.  
He feels… rawer. _Purer_.  
There’s nowhere he can go to hide, no words to use as shields, for Joseph has seen him uncovered and naked in more ways than one. With no masks to cover, no roles to play, Joseph holds his true face, with all the scars on the flesh, to his eyes.  
It feels terrifying, Sebastian thinks, as he had done nothing but run and hide for the past years, finding shelter in alcohol and pent-up anger.  
It feels terrifying, but so, so right.  
_Freeing _, in a way.__  
  
Joseph must have felt a change in his posture as Sebastian threw his thoughts around in his head and forcefully processed them as if they had been lying in corner of his mind and taking the dust, for the hands he cupped Sebastian’s face with let the thumb gently brush against the stubbled skin.  
  
“... Can you keep kissing me ?” Sebastian finally manages to ask. Confidence runs in his mind but his entire body is still ready to burn and melt under Joseph’s touch.  
  
_Which sounds like a good night in perspective._  
  
Joseph looks for a confirmation in the hazel of Sebastian’s eyes, and then gently guides him back onto his elbows.  


	11. From My Heart, To Yours (Heliotrope, Red Tulip, Sunflower)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian resolves his issues, has a good time overall.

          Sebastian pushes the fabric of his open shirt off his chest, clearing the path to his sides, as Joseph finds a comfortable position on his stomach, using his elbows as leverage. With a mild, almost appreciative hand, he finds the scar running over two of Sebastian’s left ribs. It makes a sharp, oblique line like an arrow pointed at his hip, and Joseph runs careful fingers on the pinkish tissue. He pulls himself slightly up so his lips find the old wound, and lets his slightly open mouth run the path of the cicatrice. Sebastian’s breath hitches in his throat as he tries to inhale, feeling the way Joseph carefully purses his lips against the scar, millimeter by millimeter, as he did on his shoulder.  
The ever-so-slightly noisy, subtly wet sounds Joseph’s lips make as they press themselves against the skin has Sebastian gripping at the sheet for emotional support.  
_If that’s how I am with just kisses_ , he chastises himself, _how the_ hell _am I going to handle having sex with him ?!_  
Joseph doesn’t hear his inner monologue and merrily carries on, hands furtive over the healthy skin, brushing over the curves of Sebastian’s pectorals in a swift but not-so-discreet appreciative movement that has Sebastian raising an eyebrow.  
  
When Joseph finds the scar on Sebastian’s right hip, the man feels the air leave his lungs. His heart threatens to spill from his mouth as he observes his partner, hands awaiting permission, hovering over the waistbands of his pants. Joseph gives him a questioning glance, and Sebastian laboriously manages a nod.  
Joseph’s fingers hook themselves under the waistband of the pants, which has Sebastian holding onto the sheet as if they could save him, then slip under the waistband of the underwear too, which has Sebastian almost tearing through it as his heart start pounding erratically against his ribcage, threatening to break the bars and fly free.  
Joseph doesn’t pull the fabric down and his lips find the higher end of the scar that disappears down Sebastian’s thigh — a nasty knife wound, Sebastian remembers, that almost did away with him.  
Joseph huddles up closer, more of his weight shifting on top of Sebastian’s body, his free hand used as support against Sebastian’s thigh, as he languidly and deliberately runs his parted lips down the cicatrice. As the hip bone fades under Joseph’s kiss as he travels down, his lips finding the tender line angling towards the groin, Sebastian has to cover his mouth with a white-knuckled hand.  
  
_Oh fuck_ , he thinks, _oh fuck_.  
**_That’s way too close to my cock._**  
  
But Joseph doesn’t seem to mind and he slowly, with a leisured finger, pulls the two layers of clothing down as his lips travel freely. The clothes ruffle as Joseph lowers them further down Sebastian’s thigh to follow with his lips the curve of the scar as it arcs towards Sebastian’s crotch.  
Sebastian’s hands grip at the already-manhandled sheet under him. His breathing speeds up between his ribs, his chest heaving and falling frantically. His heart feels on the verge of spilling out of his mouth as one of Joseph’s hand works carefully to uncover as much skin as he can while still keeping Sebastian’s cock cloaked by the heavy fabric of blue jeans and, Sebastian thinks, Joseph can absolutely feel his uprising boner under the thickness of the cloth.  
  
Sebastian manages to ruggedly clear his throat as to redirect Joseph’s attention to his face — Joseph’s eyes find his face, subtly amused as he seems completely aware of how he makes Sebastian feels.  
  
“Hey,” Sebastian manages to call him, voice desperately too rough to sound as casual as he wants it to be, “c’mere.”  
  
He orders Joseph up with a movement of his hand, trying to sound and look in charge of the situation when he is, in fact, a very horny, and very emotional, mess.  
Joseph’s hands let go of the pants and underwear, almost purposely keeping it ruffled in a way which expose as much skin as possible even when the fabric is let loose, and rises up on his arms to find Sebastian’s face at eye-level.  
Sebastian sees this smirk toying with the corner of his mouth, delighted and subtly prideful, as he loops his arms around Joseph’s body to pull him closer.  
_Ah, bad move_ , Sebastian thinks with a nervous chuckle as he feels Joseph’s weight, as he pulled him close, shift over the tent hoisted in his pants by his inconvenient boner.  
He watches Joseph’s hips swirl from his previous position to onto his lap, settling his ass over Sebastian’s compromising erection. Fully aware of the situation and positively _delighted_ , he offers Sebastian a half-lidded, hungry glance over a jubilated smile.  
  
“Kiss me,” Sebastian asks, way too mellow and tender for what he intended it to be, pulling Joseph by the chin.  
  
Joseph gently disengages himself from Sebastian’s light hold and retrieves his own, hands cupping his partner’s face, placidly keeping it still. Sebastian blinks in confusion and Joseph’s lips find the long scar running over his eyebrow.  
Sebastian’s eyes close shut, his partner’s unexpected tenderness contrasting with their previous, quite randy, state, and he instinctively grabs Joseph’s arms for support, a choked breath escaping his mouth.  
Joseph shushes him in a whisper, lips still pressed against his skin.  
His hands find a warm hold on Sebastian’s cheeks, closer to his lips and chin, and Sebastian watches the next kiss unfold under his eyes.  
He sees the way the tip of Joseph’s tongue peek from between his lips to wet them, the way his eyes are locked on his next target, and as the scar cutting in the flesh of Sebastian’s lip starts throbbing — with an old pain, with longing, with want —, Joseph leans forward.  
  
His mouth finds the sharp higher end of the scar and, in a slow but fluid descent, run over the cicatrice until the two men’s lips find themselves in the loosest of lip-lock, fitting perfectly, almost painfully so, against each other.  
  
  
          Their breathing is a bit short when they break apart, leaning back slowly, even though only emotions make their blood run so fast under their skin.  
  
“Hey,” Sebastian whispers, his voice barely audible in the midst of their panting, “I wanna kiss you too.”  
  
Joseph raises a confused eyebrow. Sebastian starts gently tugging at the hem of his shirt, pulling a bit of what had been tucked into his pants and Joseph makes a small “ _oh_!” of comprehension.  
  
"You won’t find many scars on me,” Joseph says as he lets Sebastian push him gently on his back as they switch places.  
“I’ll still find a way to kiss you,” Sebastian laughs, and Joseph imitates him as he raises his arms over his head to allow his partner to pull the tucked shirt up.  
  
Sebastian lifts the shirt to Joseph’s chest then straightens it back down, fingers reaching for the button at Joseph’s neck.  
Joseph gives him a small smile and Sebastian can read, held in each feature of his face, toned adoration, impatience, quiet desire, and excitement. Sebastian would drink the nectar of this mix at the cup of Joseph’s lips, but he is determined to complete his task without getting distracted.  
The small little moan Joseph gives, turning his head in — in what, shame? Embarrassment? Desire? — when Sebastian’s hands run over his chest to push his shirt open, is enough to make Sebastian painfully aware of his boner again. He keeps undoing button after button, trying to take as much time as he can to build Joseph up as much as Joseph did to him… “ _trying_ ” being the important part. His fingers move by themselves and they’re way faster than he intended them to be, eager and keen, wrecked impatient to have Joseph’s naked skin under his gaze and under his hands.  
Joseph seems to notice, and fails to conceal a smile.  
Sebastian reaches the last button, painfully close to Joseph’s zipper — it takes Sebastian a monstrous effort not to pull it down —, and finally the shirt falls open over Joseph’s chest, the fabric loose over his ribs.  
  
Joseph gazes at Sebastian with half-lidded, slightly clouded eyes. The way his pupils grow as to make his eyes turn almost entirely black scream of poorly-hidden, desperate want. Sebastian’s lips curl into a smile, warmth singing in his chest, and he gently pulls the shirt off Joseph’s shoulders to have him wiggle out of it. He quickly discards the piece of clothing with almost a tad too much force, sending it flying across the room. This makes Joseph laugh, his voice so clear and cheerful, at how much Sebastian is unable to conceal how much he wants this whole thing. Joseph holds his hands up to hold onto his partner’s face and pulls him in for a kiss.  
  
Joseph’s lips are already parted when Sebastian dives down to meet them, the tip of his tongue peeking out from his smile. Sebastian loops his arms around Joseph, slipping them between the warm skin of his back and the mattress, pulling the man against his chest as if he wanted them to melt into the other, and accepts Joseph’s warm welcome.  
  
Joseph pulls Sebastian’s face to his, smiles and chuckles with the way his hunger brings his tongue between his lips, the way he tries to hold him close, kiss him closer, while at the same time hiding his inconvenient boner — inconvenient only for Sebastian, really.  
Sebastian’s lips travel to the curve of Joseph’s jaw, barely leaving the skin. Joseph’s are glistening wet as he chuckles at the way Sebastian’s stubble tickles his neck.  
  
Sebastian slowly leans back, gaze hovering upon Joseph’s naked chest. Joseph spares a gaze from under his eyelids, pupils blown wide with impatience. Sebastian lets his hands travel from Joseph’s back to his side, feeling the way his ribs rise and fall with his panting breath. When his fingers find a specific spot, on Joseph’s right flank, Sebastian sees Joseph’s brow furrow subtly, and a very small, almost wounded “oh…” escapes his lips.  
Sebastian settles himself on his elbows and, his left hand caressing the patch of skin, slowly leans in.  
  
“You don’t have to do this,” he hears Joseph murmur.  
“I want to,” he replies, and his lips find the spot he remembers seeing oozing blood.  
  
The skin is warm, tender, twitches subtly under his mouth, but the memory of the hemostatic sticks to his mind like the package stuck to his fingers.  
Joseph must have noticed the way his thoughts started running again, because he slips his fingers in Sebastian’s hair, hand comforting and empathetic.  
  
“Sebastian,” he whispers, “if that makes you uncomfortable, we can just stop…”  
“I want to do this,” Sebastian asserts. “I will do this.”  
  
He presses his lips harder where a wound is supposed to be.  
_Supposed to._  
There’s nothing there — the skin is clear, almost milky, even, as he brushes a thumb over it.  
It makes Sebastian’s chest sink in with a relief drowned in guilt and the ground-shaking feeling of a flashback coming. Joseph’s fingers tighten in a grip in his hair, gently pulling.  
_Oh fuck_ , Sebastian thinks, _okay, that’s kinda hot._  
And with that, it’s fine.  
  
  
          Sebastian moves to Joseph’s other side and, with a calm and warmly inquisitive hand, travels the plans of his flank and ribs and chest.  
  
“Where did the second bullet lodge itself,” he asks, his voice barely cracking as the memories threaten to spill — but they do not this time, muffled and contained by the way Joseph’s hand pets him still.  
  
Joseph uses his free hand to feel his skin, searching for the spot that would fetch the memory from the back of his mind and bring it to the brim of his lips, ready to be thrown up. He runs his fingers on his chest, Sebastian’s following suit, taking the opportunity to touch him with impunity. Finally, a particular spot between two of his ribs makes his breath hitch in pain in his throat.  
  
“Right there,” he blurts out, voice strained, “right there.”  
  
Sebastian finds support on his elbows as he leans forward.  
The way Joseph hurries his hand to his skin, as if Sebastian’s fingers could heal the agonizing pain that sometimes rings to the door of his flesh, is enough for him to almost throw himself over Joseph, pulling his body closer and crashing his lips onto his skin.  
Joseph lets out a choked gasp and. As Sebastian’s lips lock themselves on where the wound still stings in forgotten nightmares, Joseph holds onto him as if he was a drowning man. Sebastian returns the embrace and Joseph’s two hands find their way into his hair, pulling him closer.  
  
They stay like this for a while, Sebastian’s lips physically unable to leave Joseph’s skin, the way his partner holds him barely allowing him to gently purse them to create a kiss.  
Joseph’s breathing, erratic and ragged, makes Sebastian struggle to look at him in the eye. He finds Joseph’s, and they have turned black with how his pupils are blown, looking almost wet too. Sebastian rises on his hands and crawls back up to Joseph’s face, diving in for a kiss like an owl on its prey, and Joseph grabs his face like his life depended on it. Joseph’s throat shelters a low, almost desperate whine, and Sebastian drinks it up as it slips past his lips.  
They stay like this for a little while, legs entangled like ivy, Joseph’s jagged breathing washing over Sebastian’s lips as they kiss.  
When they manage to get their mouth off the other, Sebastian watches Joseph’s eyes drift to his thighs, where his pants and underwear are still pulled down in a way that barely manages to cover his cock, then to where their naked chests meet, and hears him whisper, voice barely warmth against his skin:  
  
“How about we… get naked… and see what we can do from here ?”  
  
Sebastian’s eyes widen, desire knocking at the door of his ribcage like that neighbor coming to yell at your face after you listened to music too loud, but a groundswell of fear knocks him off and takes the air out of his lungs.  
  
“I… don’t know if I’m ready for the… _big thing_ yet…”  
“Me neither,” Joseph says, lips curled in an adoring smile.  
  
Sebastian blinks twice, observes the way Joseph’s fingers tease at the waistband of his pants, and suddenly he’s back at these quiet nights where he would just lie next to Joseph as his partner jacked off as nonchalantly as possible.  
If he wasn’t stuck in Joseph’s embrace, he would have climbed the curtains by now.  
The first phalanges of Joseph’s index fingers disappear under the fabric of Sebastian’s underwear.

 

 


	12. Open Treasure Chests (Clove)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A walk into each other's arms (gone sexual)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> congratulations ! you have gone through 11 chapters awaiting a sexy thing. here is a small one. it's an appéritif, if you will. Bon appétit !

          Sebastian's lips have found Joseph's again, and the smile they're sharing between teasing tongues and taunting bites almost makes him forget about Joseph's hands.  
His fingers are slipped under the already pulled-down waistbands and he slowly pushes the two layers of clothing down. His hands slide down Sebastian's thighs in an agonizingly slow pace, pulling at the belt loops one by one. They travel from Sebastian's hips, feeling the way they dip towards his crotch, to the back of his thighs. Here, they appreciate the curve of his ass as they travel to the low of his back, before going back to their task of discarding the older man of his now very restricting pants.  
He manages to get them down to Sebastian's knees, appreciates the muscles of Sebastian's thighs on each side of his hips, and gently pushes his partner off him to help him further.  
Sebastian flops ungracefully on his side, making Joseph chuckle — Sebastian makes him shut up with an order blurted from behind a laugh and a hungry kiss — and he tries to kick his pants off, Joseph having to ask him to stop wagging his legs and let him help.

Joseph has barely managed to kick Sebastian's pants off his legs — and thrown them on the other side of the room with the same force Sebastian threw his shirt — that Sebastian is already all over him again. Joseph has hardly the time to appreciate the sight of his partner's cock, finally freed of its prison of cloth, raised eager and at it between his thighs, that Sebastian's mouth is against his again. His tongue and teeth, keen and forward, are craving and greedy in a way that would make them feel like kissing is the main course of the night.

"Hey, be nice," Joseph chuckles, putting a gentle hand on Sebastian's lips to calm down his ardor, "be nice."

Sebastian makes a low grunt that rings to Joseph's ears like what pure, unfiltered _Horniness_ would sound like if it was a noise. Joseph laughs softly again and Sebastian reaps his voice from his mouth with a wet, and quite eager, tongue.

Joseph lets Sebastian push him back onto his pillow, pulling him down with him as he falls.  
Sebastian's hands find the metal of Joseph's zipper and his fingers fight with the small piece, making him grunt and rumble in frustration, which has Joseph, visibly delighted by the whole situation, giggle against his mouth.

"Hey, keep calm, Seb," Joseph smiles between two impatient purses of Sebastian's lips, "it'll come off if you don't break it."

Sebastian barely hears him. His heart pounds at his temples as if it was lodged in his throat, and Joseph's hands, traveling up and down his thighs in a nonchalant caress, are almost enough to send him over the edge right there and right now.  
He feels like his entire body is humming with desire, vibrating to the sound of Joseph's laughs and breathing.  
_Almost ten years_ , he thinks, _almost ten years of desires are singing in Joseph's bloodstream._  
Ten years of want, of unadmitted fantasies, of lustful thoughts hidden away, ten years of Joseph _wanting_ him. That makes Sebastian's cock _ache_ with how bad he wants him.

He manages to pull the zipper down without crushing it into pieces. Sebastian promptly pushes himself up, balancing on his feet as he kneels next to Joseph's legs, and pulls his pants inelegantly, fighting with how tight they are over his lover's skin.  
Joseph helps him kick them off, not that graceful himself, and Sebastian is _this close_ to straight up jumping him, Joseph's impatience oozing of poorly-concealed lust and desire in such an intoxicating, head-spinning way.  
Sebastian doesn't waste much time helping Joseph out of his underwear too, and the glance he steals towards Joseph's face as he slides the fabric off his long, subtly toned legs, shows the man hiding his face behind a hand, the redness of his cheeks spreading to his neck and chest.  
Sebastian's mind begins a litany of thanks, for Joseph's face, for Joseph's body, for Joseph's feelings, for Joseph's desires, for Joseph's soul. It makes his skull hurt with a long scream of pure and unfiltered craving.  
Sebastian knows _exactly_ what he wants to make Joseph feel.  
He lets Joseph's underwear slip off his ankles and directs a glance to Joseph's cock.  
_Oh, he wants it, alright._

Sebastian observes, awestruck, the way Joseph's dick raises above his hips, how the underside is already tinged pink with the way it's getting hard, how Joseph reaches down between his thighs to cover it in embarrassment. Sebastian promptly crawls to Joseph's side, flopping onto his side against his lover's flank, and pulls him in for a kiss. Joseph's hands move from covering his crotch to embracing Sebastian, pulling him on top of him, locking him in a loop of arms.  
Sebastian's eyes blink in a mix of confusion, shock, and delight when he feels the way Joseph's cock presses against his skin.

"Well, we managed to get naked," Joseph whispers, a smile toying with the corner of his mouth, when they finally part with a wet little sound.  
"Go us," Sebastian chuckles, voice as low, and he kisses dry a small wet patch on Joseph's lips.  
"Is there anything in particular you want to do now…?" Joseph asks, and Sebastian hears in his voice an anxiety barely uncovered, lying flat on its bed of self-consciousness, hidden by a thick veil of desire.

Sebastian nods slowly.  
There is, and he has been wanting to do now since that fateful night.

"There is," he says, and he rolls on Joseph's side.

Sebastian slips his arm between the mattress and the pillow in the way he often does when they sleep, feeling the weight of Joseph's head in the hollow of his elbow, arranges his position as Joseph offers him some room on the cushion, still slightly confused, and finally lays a hand on Joseph's chest.

He feels the way Joseph's heartbeat kisses his palm from under the flesh, how it subtly quickens when he moves his hand lower.  
Joseph steals a glance in his direction, and the deep black of his pupils shine with anticipation and something that whispers, low and almost shy: " _you really want to do this? You really do? You'd do that for me?"_

"I've… been wanting to do this since you first brought it up," Sebastian says, almost embarrassed, and embarrassed of being embarrassed, "I just thought 'god, let me be your hand next time', so… If you're okay with that…"

And Joseph twists his upper body to crash his lips against Sebastian's mouth, not really on his lips and not really on his cheek, throwing an arm around Sebastian's neck to pull him closer. He steals his entire breath with the tip of his tongue.

" _Please_ ," Joseph breathes against Sebastian's skin, and it makes him ache with how much pure, undiluted _want_ this plea contains.  
Sebastian promptly buries his face in the crook of Joseph's neck, mouthing at the pulse point here, kissing the curve of the jaw, the arm he hid under the pillow slipping under Joseph to hold him closer. Joseph lets out a small, if agonizingly hot moan as Sebastian's hand travels down his chest, finds the path to his hipbone and, in a provokingly taunting sweep, flies to Joseph's thigh.  
Sebastian's careful fingers trace Joseph's inner thigh from the knee up, feeling the way muscles and skin react to the touch — twitching under the tickling sensation, then pressing the leg to the contact, desperate for more, as Joseph's entire body squirms just from the caress on his thigh.  
Sebastian's hands find Joseph's groin, fingers curling over the firmness of the ligament there, and Sebastian can hear the loud gulp echoing in his partner's throat when he dares to inch them closer.  
He does it again. Joseph's nails dig between his shoulder blades. It's unreal, unexpected, it feels like they should have done this ten years ago.  
But they didn't, and now is the time.

Sebastian reaffirms his grip on Joseph's body in retaliation, inhaling the warmth in the crook of his neck, and his hand finds its way to Joseph's cock.  
He is careful, as if he felt like Joseph would run from the moment.  
His hand settles itself low, nestling the base of the shaft in the crook of his thumb, cradling it against the pliable skin running between thumb and index finger.  
Sebastian lets his hand bend subtly, fingers and palms cupping Joseph's balls in a hold he desperately wants nonchalant — but that he knows, feeling his heart pound erratically in his chest, is going to drive him mad just by feeling skin against him and listening to Joseph's quickening breathing.

Sebastian doesn't dare to look down, to see with his own eyes his hand, as loosely as it holds, wrapped around Joseph's cock.  
He shuts his eyes and worries the sensitive skin of Joseph's jaw with playful teeth, trying to keep his gaze off his task, as he slowly moves his hand up and adds, finger after finger, all of his phalanges around Joseph's length.  
Joseph's breathing hitches in his throat and a small, almost choked _"oh fuck…"_ slips past his lips.  
_Oh God, maybe closing my eyes wasn't such a good idea…_  
Sebastian moves his lips down to reach Joseph's collarbone and his hand up to reach the tip of his cock. He feels the way Joseph bucks, almost subconsciously, into his fist.  
_It is extremely, extremely hot._

"Seb, _please…_ "

 _That_ makes Sebastian's eyes snap open.  
He jolts out of the crook of Joseph's neck and his gaze locks itself on where his palm meets Joseph's arousal.  
He wants to see now.  
He wants to see it all.  
He wants to glance between how hard Joseph gets in his hold and how red his cheeks turn, between how wet, glistening with cum the tip of Joseph's cock will be as he works him up and how low he'll manage to keep his voice as he'll come.  
Sebastian feels like years of longing to please his partner, years of unadmitted daydreams about touching him, feeling him, listening to him moan, years of pent-up desire are finally busting through the cage of his ribs. This makes his blood sing in release and guides the movements of his hands over Joseph's skin.  
Sebastian finds a comfortable pace in the calculated motion of his wrist, each of his stroke deliberate to pull the most pleasured noises out of Joseph's mouth, his grip firm but not tight as he strokes Joseph's length with a nonchalance that quickly falls into pieces.

The way Joseph pants and moans and clings onto him with each of the purposeful goings and comings of Sebastian's hand makes him dizzy, ecstatic; he'd drink the pleasure sounds at the fountain of his lover's lips if he wasn't captivated, absolutely charmed by how Joseph's erection reacts to his deeds.  
Sebastian stares, carves in his mind to cherish forever the way the tip of Joseph's dick gets his thumb a little bit wetter every time he runs it over the slit, the way the shaft grows redder and harder against his palm.  
It's enchanting, it's wrenching, and the way Joseph holds onto him in desperation, bucking against him for more, is driving Sebastian crazy.  
His ears ring with Joseph's voice, spelling words and spilling pleas that have probably been buried inside his chest for years. The fact that Joseph has wanted him for so long and now can barely keep himself coherent, a brutal contrast with how reserved, contained and collected he has always seemed, makes Sebastian _painfully_ hard.

"Ah — _oh_ , _please_ Seb, oh _fuck—_ "

It sounds like music to Sebastian's ears and he cannot hold back from kissing Joseph again. A surprised moan escapes the man's lips but he soon reinforces his hold around Sebastian, his mouth opening wet and warm with hunger, welcoming Sebastian's tongue like a long-awaited prophecy.  
Sebastian promptly pulls back from their kiss to spare Joseph's neck a quick peck before focusing back on his cock.

He finds the pace of his hand over and around Joseph's length that makes him moan and his legs twi _—_ _fuck—_ tch and his hips buck into Sebastian's fist. Keeping his hold firm and fast, his fingers give a tentative squeeze each time they reach the base of the head of Joseph's cock — and oh, he sees, he relishes in the sight of how bad he makes Joseph want to come.  
Each time he reaches the upper part of his lover's shaft, Sebastian manages to draw some more pre-cum, and it drips onto his hand, spills onto the back, slips between his knuckles, coats Joseph's cock with each stroke Sebastian gives and makes the following ones slicker, and noisier. Joseph's hips thrust desperately into Sebastian's fist and his mouth fall open with how _close_ he is, almost unable to speak as pure, unfiltered _want_ and this heart-wrenching need for release sings in his blood and tenses his whole body —  
_Oh_ , Sebastian manages to think in the midst of his own breathing and heartbeat going mad with the way Joseph moans and whines and pants and clings onto him with so much force it almost renders Sebastian unable to breathe, _oh, he's gonna cum—_

"Seb, _Seb_ , oh !"

— and he does, with a last, almost agonizingly hopeless thrust of his hips into the warm hold of Sebastian's palm, and cum spills all over Sebastian's hands in thick ropes that almost melts onto his skin, trickles down the length of Joseph's cock, strews his torso, oozes over his groins and thighs.

Sebastian watches him, eyes wide open and pupils darkening almost the entirety of his golden irises. He keeps stroking the slick length of Joseph's cock until the man has to bat his hand away and grab it off his chafing skin.  
It takes Sebastian a tremendous effort to focus back on Joseph's face, flushed red as he pants heavily, his mouth still agape as he struggles to find the end of his pleasure ride, and not dive mouth first onto his hips and lick him clean.  
"Good?" Sebastian asks, voice hoarse with a delighted shock, unable to formulate a question.

"Fuck," Joseph answers in a whine, unable to formulate a response.

Sebastian watches the way Joseph clings onto him, breathless, desperate in his hold.  
_Is this normal?_ Sebastian starts wondering, awe and anxiety mixing in his bloodstream as he cradles Joseph in his arms, wrists bent awkwardly so his hands stay off Joseph's skin as to not coat the flesh with his own cum, _does Joseph usually come this hard?_  
He doesn't, Sebastian has to remember, previous nights painting their gut-wrenching lust behind the curtains of his eyelids, and more questions flow into his mind as Joseph curls against him in his hold, his soft moan getting lost in the crook of Sebastian's neck.  
"Did I freak you out?" Sebastian asks softly, voice still trembling with the aftermath of the surprise. Joseph slowly leans back to look at him in the eye.  
"No," he answers, voice low, warm with love with a hint of interrogation, from behind the foggy screen of his glasses. "What made you think that?"  
"I don't know," Sebastian chuckles, a sigh of relief escaping his mouth, "it's that, with the way you shook and the noises you made, I feared I had triggered a weird kind of panic attack or flashback," he finishes as Joseph lets out a breathless little laugh.  
"Oh, no," he reassures Sebastian. "You're just that good."

Sebastian's eyes widen, surprise and pride and this muffled shock of seeing Joseph in this light, this aura of want and lust, making his irises grow. His heart jumps in the low part of his throat and his grip unintentionally tightens around Joseph's body, hands clasping themselves on the skin still slightly wet with sweat.  
Joseph pulls Sebastian closer, inviting them both to lay heavy on the pillows beneath. Sebastian lets their legs entwine naturally, his hold grow intimate, his face find the comfort of Joseph's heated neck. Joseph cradles his face in loving palms and his voice starts a low, content hum that Sebastian feels echoing in his ribcage where Joseph's chest presses against his.

 

          They stay in silence like this for a time that feels suspended in the air, each breath they take weightless in the heavy quiescence.

"Do you want to sleep now?" Sebastian asks after an undetermined while, voice barely a whisper against Joseph's skin.  
"Do you?" Joseph asks as a response, something small in his voice ringing almost… playful to Sebastian's ears, like the prospect of something promising.

Sebastian untangles his limbs from their shared hold to look at Joseph. He meets brown eyes shining with a poorly-contained hunger and an excitation struggling to stay hidden.  
Joseph slips out of his hold, nimble and efficient. Sebastian's breath hitches in his throat and his heart skips a powerful beat when he feels onto him Joseph's gaze, relish and almost voracious in this coy and humble way. Charmed, Sebastian lets Joseph gently push him onto his pillow, watching with knowing eyes one of his legs stride over his thighs before looking up and holding Joseph's demurely avid gaze. Sebastian watches Joseph straddle his hips, almost nonchalant in the way he ever-so-slightly closes his thighs on Sebastian's — and his fingers dig involuntarily into Joseph's warm skin as he gives a timid push of his own.  
Joseph welcomes the startled, blissful little noise that Sebastian's lips let escape with a smile of his own.  
Sebastian's question doesn't make it past his throat, and Joseph doesn't really have to hear it. His hand comes cover Sebastian's as it cups the muscular curve of his thigh.

"I… just want to make this fair."

Sebastian's lips curl in a touched smile.

"You don't have to," he replies, voice barely a whisper, a warm breeze against Joseph's skin.  
"I want to," Joseph insists, voice not higher than Sebastian's, irresistible notes of urgency making his words tremble.

Sebastian's eyes widen subtly, irises taking in Joseph's confidence like a newly pious man would inhale a whiff of the scent of an Olympian wine; how he looks this shy, yet this bold, almost dominant with these dark eyes under his heavy lashes but almost unsure of where his eager fingers would belong.  
Sebastian's head nods back subtly, lips calling Joseph down. Joseph dives into the invitation, this heartfelt thirst burning the sensitive skin of his lips as he plunges into Sebastian's open mouth like a deer finding a crystal-clear river in a forest fire.

Sebastian watches through the kiss and half-lidded eyes the way Joseph assuredly dismounts his hips and nudges his thighs apart with a playful knee. Joseph leans away from the kiss to look down at himself, observing with this thorough attention he so often shows the way he pushes himself against Sebastian. Sebastian's thighs find themselves spreading wider, and wider, accommodating Joseph's careful movements, and when Joseph finally finds a comfortable position and eases himself fully down against Sebastian's hips, bare skin meeting, Sebastian lets out a low, almost surprised sound of pleasure. The perfect curve of Joseph's back as he leans in flows naturally onto his nape as his lips capture Sebastian's next moan from the brim of his lips.  
Joseph feels the way Sebastian's breathing quickens, still stable at first, as each exhale crashes against his lips.

"Good," Sebastian can hear Joseph whisper, "good…"

Sebastian dares a glance towards where their bare thighs meet, and if he wasn't already aware of Joseph's cock against his, Joseph reminds him lovingly with a long, deliberate thrust of his hips.  
Sebastian feels the way Joseph's lower stomach, then dick, then balls, glide conscientiously along the length of his cock, tantalizing and taunting, pleasure creeping up his thighs as Joseph zealously swirls his hips, distracting kisses on his chin ending up deliriously rousing.

Joseph cautiously arranges his arms on each side of Sebastian's head, using his elbows as leverage, as he grants him a wet peck. His hands find Sebastian's cheeks, temples, hair, and he gives kiss after kiss, lips wetter with each of Sebastian's thrilled noises.  
Sebastian feels at Joseph's mercy, the younger man's hands guiding his kisses, his breathing, the trembling words he tries to utter between two wanton push of his body against Sebastian's.  
Joseph finds his rhythm between Sebastian's trembling thighs — Sebastian would have thought that this careful repetition would help him keep some sort of composure but, oh, it is worse.

Sebastian's voice trembles and cracks with each of Joseph's pulses — warmth pools in his chest from love, between his thighs from Joseph's cock rubbing fondly against his, in his mouth as Joseph kisses him again, and again, and again. His tongue comes to tease, graceful, flirtatious as it pries Sebastian's lips open, making Sebastian struggle to breathe.  
Pleasure fills his lungs, floods his abdomen as it is pulled simultaneously to his crotch and to his lips like cobalt stuck between two magnets.

"Joseph," he poorly manages to whisper, voice rough and croaky, "o — oh fuck, _Joseph—_ "

Sebastian's hands try to find a place on Joseph for support. They grab his shoulders, pulling him down as he keeps working his hips against Sebastian's, find his sides, his waist, before finally lodging themselves on the lower part of his back. Sebastian's fingers find the dimples just above his ass, tiny hollows he never paid attention to. But now, as Sebastian's palms accompany each of Joseph's thrusts, the little dimples are all they can think about.  
Joseph feels them, acknowledges them — he gives one of his previous long, ravenous thrust and Sebastian has to cling onto him for dear fucking life, a loud, choked noise of pleasure startling his throat and lungs. He feels his own release climbing to the brim of his lips, his pleasure toeing at his edge, entire body vibrating with how close, how close he is.

"Joseph, _Joseph_ ," he groans, almost a plea, almost a whine, "fuck, _fuck_ , oh _fuck—_ "

He doesn't make any sense anymore. His words, as his trembling lips let out uncontrollably, become a litany of curses and swear words  _—_ and Joseph's name, Joseph's name over and over. His legs are trembling with each undulation of Joseph's hips against his.  _Joseph, Joseph, Joseph._  
Sebastian feels him against him, over him, inside of him, with him, for him. He feels so fucking intoxicated by every breath he gives, each whispered praise he gifts, that he thinks he could cum just from it.  
Joseph shuts him up with a peck. Sebastian's lips, mid-moan, fall open under his mouth.

Sebastian thinks his lungs are going to cave in when Joseph shares a breath with him, tender and cautious. His hands rearrange themselves around Sebastian's head.  
He watches, through a gaze blurred with pleasure, the way Joseph's traits grow serious and reserved, if still painted with a delicate blush color as he seems to be quite enjoying himself too, as his fingers comb through Sebastian's disheveled hair.

"Joseph…?" Sebastian manages through his labored breathing.

Joseph's fingers close in a fist between the mess of his locks, making Sebastian let out a short, surprised noise. He blinks once, and before he can manage to see it, he feels Joseph's lips against his again.

 _Oh god_ , he thinks, _oh, oh fuck._

Joseph's mouth presses to his.  
Hungry, craving, merciless.  
It would feel aggressive, but under Sebastian's lips, it is more _desperate_ than anything.

And so become, helped slick and easy with pre-cum already pooling and dripping between Sebastian's thighs, Joseph's thrusts.  
Sebastian's nails dig into Joseph's back, extorting a shocked moan from him.  
His head firmly maintained in place by a powerful grip, Sebastian lets Joseph rub against him, the continuous waves of his spine with each push of his hips like a stormy sea crashing against the unstable shore of Sebastian's chest.  
Sebastian takes the kisses, feels the erratic heartbeat shared between them as Joseph, too, seems close to losing it. He moans and gasps as if he was drowning — and he is, oh god, he is, anticipating the tidal wave of his own release as he feels it build in his chest, in his thorax, in his crotch.  
Joseph looks at him through his heavy lashes when he isn't kissing him. He watches how Sebastian gasps and groans and moans, how he writhes under him, how his legs tremble and twitch as they are bent to his sides — how handsome, breathtaking he is with his face and chest flushed red, eyes shut tight and mouth agape.

" _Come on_ ," Joseph encourages him as his lips linger over Sebastian's, voice low, enamored, tender, just for his lover to hear. " _Come on…_ "

And Sebastian does.  
All the pleasure that had built in his chest spills up. This edge finally coming undone and, clinging desperately onto Joseph's shoulder for a bit of support, he cums messily between their entwined bodies.  
The loud moan that escapes his mouth, after a hoarse calling of Joseph's name, he doesn't even recognize as his. Joseph drinks the libation of Sebastian's ecstasy at the brim of his lips as if it was ambrosia, his own release catching him short, if silent, save for a hitch in his throat and a heavy, barely vocalized sigh of pleasure.

As Sebastian slowly regains composure, his breathing evening, Joseph raises a hand to cradle his face, as it is still buried in the crook of his neck, and cups his cheek.

"There", Joseph murmurs, soothing, lips pressed against Sebastian's temples, "there, there…"

With a gentle push, Sebastian finally lets go of Joseph's shoulders and falls back gracelessly onto his pillow. His legs, still bent in the air on each side of Joseph's waist as they were before, are still faintly shaking, toes curling and uncurling as Sebastian lays on his back. His eyes are wide open, stunned from shock and awe.

"Hey," Joseph asks, propped on his hands at arms-length over Sebastian, voice hoarse, soft, and an imperceptible bit anxious, "Sebastian, are you okay?"

Sebastian blinks once. He opens his mouth to talk but no sound comes out. Joseph leans in, panic painting his fair features dark. Sebastian clears his throat and manages to say, almost deadpan if it wasn't for his deep sense of amazement and shock mixed in his golden, widened eyes :

"You rubbed the fuck out of my cock so goddamn hard I can't feel my legs. My legs have gone totally numb."

Joseph stays stunned for half a second, eyes like saucers. He finally snaps out of his own astonishment and runs in the span of less than a few seconds through awe, pride, embarrassment, some more pride, until he finally settles into a mix of anxiety, loving concern and subtle amusement, each emotion trying to dominate the others and making a very confusing amalgam in Joseph's orgasm-astounded mind.

"Hey," he calls as he cups Sebastian's cheeks in his palms, "Sebastian, baby, stay with me!"  
"I'm fine," Sebastian manages to say, his voice warmly husky as he lets out a bliss-struck chuckle. He takes a deep, long breath to regain some composure before finding Joseph's still slightly worried gaze and adding: "I'm okay, I just think you jerked my brains out through my dick."  
"I'm so sorry," Joseph hastens to apologize, voice dropping in embarrassment.  
"It's fine," Sebastian laughs, and he runs a hand through Joseph's black locks.

Joseph looks up, his bashful gaze finding his, amused and delighted. Sebastian starts to think that, hadn't he been this pleasure-intoxicated, he'd have probably thought he needed to call an exorcist. He had never been this loud, or shook so much as if he was undergoing High-G training. Something had gone on.

Was it because it had been so long since he even dared to jack off? Was it because so much had gone on since the last time he had ever been intimate with someone? Was it because he had been feeling so numb and restless after what went on in STEM that the tiniest bit of pleasure had felt like an out-of-body-experience? Was it because, in one way or another, with Joseph, it was special? But was it _more_ special than the other times?

 _Was it because, was it because._  Sebastian can wonder and wonder and sit around a cup of coffee with Joseph to try to find the truth, but as it stands, the truth is that Joseph made him come so hard he still hasn't retrieved all sensation in his legs, is petting him with loving hands and just called him baby.  
So, that's good.

"Hey," Sebastian hails Joseph in a whisper, "what did you call me?" he asks, voice gently demanding in a way that Joseph's notice immediately.  
"... 'Baby'? I called you 'baby'..." Joseph answers after a short span of trying to recall.

Sebastian looks at him, warm honey eyes tender under heavy lashes.

"...Did you like it?" Joseph asks.  
"Yeah," Sebastian adds, voice barely audible — not that it needs to be, with the charmed, enchanted look he gives Joseph from under the blush still coloring his cheeks.

Joseph's lips twitch in a little smirk. He lowers himself on his elbows, face lingering over Sebastian's blissful visage.

" _Baby_ ," he hums, appreciating the Sebastian closes his eyes in pleasure as he repeats it.

Joseph finds himself pulled in a tender kiss and lets his weight rest over Sebastian's body. He takes gentle hold of his face as their mouths find their delicate lip-lock, fitting in together so naturally, and the two men revel in the suppleness of the other's lips.  
Sebastian is still rubbing a gentle thumb on Joseph's cheek when Joseph whispers against his lips :

"I should probably get off you. We need to get cleaned up."

Sebastian hums in approbation.  
Slowly, he manages to unbend his legs and slowly bring them back to the mattress. Joseph pats his thighs as he does so, offering apologetic glances as Sebastian grunts in effort. Joseph then hops out of his previous place and settles on his knees at Sebastian's side, helping him find a more seated position as he slowly pulls his pillow up. As Joseph turns to his bedside table to get the box of tissues, Sebastian catches his hand to plant a kiss on his palm.

"On another note," Sebastian begins, suddenly almost shy even though his usual toughness plays barricade, "I genuinely something happened just then. I don't remember a time where I came so hard I lost sensation in my legs. This was way too intense for my poor heart," he half-jokes.  
"Congratulations, Mr. Castellanos," Joseph teases, a loving smile painting his face as Sebastian brings his hand to one of his cheeks, "you have ascended beyond the realms of mortal orgasm."  
"God, don't joke about that," Sebastian begins, letting out a chuckle muffled by Joseph's caress, "I felt like I just had an out-of-body existence, had my third eye opened and discovered the secrets of consciousness all in one night."

They share a heartfelt laugh as Joseph manages to grab the box.

"There's this woman in my PTSD therapy group," Sebastian starts, letting go or Joseph's hand, "who said we should all give meditation and all that a try to open our chakras, or whatever. Now I can go back and tell her I didn't need to, I just needed to get my soul rubbed out of my body through my dick by amazing sex."

And with that, he glances at Joseph. He watches the way Joseph tries to keep a neutral face as his lips twitch in a pleasured smile, as his eyes shine with pleasure and pride, flattery making his cheeks get ever-so-slightly redder.  
When Joseph has managed to regain his composure and is now holding Sebastian's gaze with a placid, elegant smile, Sebastian reiterates :

"You're incredible, you know that, love?"

He is delighted by Joseph's entire body shivering in pleasure as he closes his eyes, trying to keep some sort self-control. A steady blush spreads across his face and down his chest and, going almost unnoticed before Sebastian catches it out of the corner of his eyes, his cock tastefully twitches up with bliss.

_Oh? Hold on, hold on, what?_

"Okay," Joseph huffs as he recovers some restraint, "we really need to get cleaned up, Sebastian."

Sebastian nods, a dumb smile curling the corners of his mouth. Joseph pull out tissues from their box and Sebastian simply stares, still amazed by what he just witnessed. He dares a glance at Joseph's dick, sees how Joseph tries to keep it down with an insistent palm as unnoticed as he can.

_Oh my god… The praise? Is it the praise? Does Joseph have—_

He is interrupted by one of Joseph's fingers near his mouth, observing his chin and lips.

"How did you manage to get some here?" he hears Joseph asks, disbelieved.  
"Some what?"  
"Some _cum_ , detective," Joseph answers with a smug smirk.

Sebastian comically presses his chin to his neck in an attempt to see, managing to get a frank laugh from Joseph.

"Well then, now," Sebastian theatrically bolts, "which one of us gave me a facial?!"

Joseph, taken aback, lets out a snort as he starts laughing, before promptly stopping and batting Sebastian's hand away, yelping :

"Don't wipe it off with your hands!"

 

 


	13. Lilac, Citrus, Chamomile (Honeysuckle)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting off the high, one caress at the time.  
> Joseph is a bit blunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> congratulations, you have earned an entire fucking chapter dedicated to post-coital care and chillin'. it was supposed to be in the last chapter but it became so long i couldn't keep it in. no i will not cut it out. never have i even thought about cutting out. i live the dangerous life. my fingers and wrists want me dead. i am not afraid to face my judgement.

          Joseph throws the last used tissue in the bin. Sebastian relishes in the fresh memory of Joseph gently wiping fluid off his stomach, the inside of his thighs, his hips, his chest, longingly lingering over Sebastian's pectorals in a way which made him raise an eyebrow that, once noticed, promptly made Joseph wipe another part of his body.

_Oh so this too, huh?_

"We should have a shower," Joseph interrupts his reverie. "I cleaned up what I could, but you're still a bit sticky."

Sebastian lets a lazy hand graze over Joseph's skin as he caresses his thighs.

"We should," Sebastian agrees as Joseph slips off the bed.  
"Come on," he encourages Sebastian, still laying heavy on his back.

Standing up, Sebastian feels his legs giving up under his weight as puts feet on the ground. Joseph runs to his side to catch him.

"I still haven't recovered from whatever spell you put me under," Sebastian jokes, mouth buried into Joseph's neck as he lays against him.  
"Sorry about that," Joseph replies, playful, "I'm new to this magick thing."

Sebastian lets out a loud laugh and Joseph chuckles too. Securing his grip around a Sebastian wobbly on his legs, Joseph drags them both to the bathroom, feeling his lover's lips in the crook of his neck as he lays heavy against his side.  
As Joseph struggles to open the bathroom door with his weight on him, Sebastian observes and thinks.  
Thinks about the light-hearted, the jokey, the tender in his laugh Joseph. It's so new. It's something that he either never saw or never was able to pay attention to, drawn in his own misery.  
It's tender and intoxicating.  
Joseph interrupts his train of thought as he gently asks him to sit on the edge of the tub so he can get the water running to warm.  
Sebastian leans in for a kiss. It crashes ungraceful and slightly wet at the corner of Joseph's lips, bringing out a soft laugh.

 

          Joseph had gently pushed Sebastian to lay against the wall to find balance. The water started running warm. Joseph collected some in the cup of his hands to gently rub Sebastian's hair, sticky with sweat. Sebastian had laid a hand over Joseph's hip, nonchalant, before pressing his cheek into Joseph's open palm.  
Time had stopped running and the only thing giving this moment its tempo was their even breathing, each of their respiration diving into the other's, loving gazes suspended in the air like tightrope walkers.

Joseph presses his lips to Sebastian's forehead, a soapy washcloth in one hand. With a cautious hand, he runs circles on Sebastian's chin, his free hand bringing water to the skin to rinse as the showerhead rains upon them.  
Sebastian watches how drops fall onto Joseph's lashes, as they curtain his focused eyes, like dew caught in spider webs.  
Joseph cleans, with this nonchalant reverence, Sebastian's throat. His fingers feel the way the muscles move as Sebastian slowly tilts his head back, his collarbones and the shoulders they flow into, his chest, ribs, rubbing over his abdomen, letting a playful finger escape his control and run over Sebastian's hip, his lower stomach, grazing towards his crotch.

Sebastian watches Joseph comb his wet hair back with a detached hand and, eyes half-lidded with how his gaze is focused down, yet almost lazy, get on his knees.  
Heartbeats thud against Sebastian's temples. He watches in awe and follows with admirative yet apprehensive eyes the path of Joseph's hand.  
It brings the washcloth to the inside of Sebastian's thighs, close to the knee, cleans calmly, tranquilly. Sebastian watches how Joseph leans in, barely noticeably, and he hears his own breath hitch loudly in his throat.  
_That's hot_ , he blurts out in thoughts. That's hot, and if he hadn't just had his entire brain rubbed out through his dick and his cock rendered out-of-order for probably a week, he'd get an inappropriate boner. He glances down.  
Joseph is watching him through wet lashes, gaze kind, serene, yet shining with something playful. He _knows_ what's he's doing.

"I won't try anything," Joseph tells him, voice barely heard in the steady pouring of water splashing against the bathtub bottom. "We're here to get cleaned up."  
"Yeah," Sebastian gulps as Joseph's hand climbs up his thigh. "Cleaned up."

Joseph takes solemn care of Sebastian's legs, then hips, crotch, groin.  
As he finishes rinsing with a hum, Sebastian runs a gentle hand through his wet hair, barely pulling, as to make him look up.  
Joseph does, and Sebastian invites him back on his feet. Joseph stands and Sebastian is already leaning in, hands welcoming his face in their cradle, to kiss him.

"Shall we go back to bed ?" Joseph asks when their lips finally part, water cascading between their faces.  
"We shall," Sebastian agrees and, as he yawns, is gently nudged out of the bathtub by Joseph.

 

          Joseph pats his cheeks, his hair, his shoulders dry, wraps a bath sheet around his waist, throws a towel over his hair and ruffles gently. Sebastian watches Joseph's focused eyes as concentration furrows his brows lightly. He feels his lips twitch in a smile.

Joseph brings them back to the bedroom. His arm is arm wrapped loosely around Sebastian's body in the way it was prior as to carry the two of them to the shower. Sebastian flops onto the mattress when Joseph pushes him with a careful hand and catches the underwear Joseph throws at him from the closet. As he wriggles into the piece of fabric, he watches Joseph hop on one foot trying to put his on. He lets out a laugh, and Joseph glances at him. He tries to look offended, but a smile curls the corners of his mouth.  
As Joseph climbs into bed, Sebastian opens his arms wide and pulls him into an embrace. Joseph nestles up against him, rubbing a cheek in the crook of his neck, over his shoulder and up to his jaw. A large hand comes to ruffle his still slightly wet hair and he feels Sebastian's lips pressed to his temple, a warm laugh tickling his skin.  
Joseph snuggles in his hold and lets out a low hum of contentment. Something like rain taps the window, a gentle drum line to the lullaby of the earliest morning.

 

"Hey," Joseph asks after a little while, voice barely a warm whisper against Sebastian's cheek, "do you want something to eat?"  
"What time is it?" Sebastian asks, voice hoarse with the sleep that started to catch up on him, as he pushes himself on his elbows from his exhausted starfish position to check the bedside clock. "Barely 1 AM… I guess we could go for a nighttime snack !"

And with that, Joseph hops off the bed and trots to the kitchen, Sebastian's surprised eyes trailing after him as he disappears in the hallway — and diving down to his ass, but we don't dwell on that.

Joseph trots back in a few minutes later, carrying between two steady hands a wooden tray. Onto it are set two mugs filled with steaming water, the string of a tea bag hanging over the brim, a generously sized bowl of fruits, toasts in a small white plate and a few tiny jars of various jams.

"Joseph," Sebastian chuckles fondly, if slightly perplexed, as Joseph carries the tray to him, "I said a nighttime _snack_ , not a whole breakfast…"  
"Eat up," Joseph says, a smile curling his lips.

Sebastian adjusts the tray over his legs as he pulls the blanket up for support. Joseph jumps back next to him, slipping effortlessly under the covers.  
The herbal tea fills the air with the delicate perfumes of verbena and citrus, and Joseph takes a bite into a still warm piece of bread he just finished covering in blueberry jam.  
Sebastian cleans the side of his mouth from a purple lump of jelly with a kiss.

 

          The tray has been brought back to the kitchen. The mugs, with leaves coating their porcelain bottoms, have been discarded in the sink. The jams, put back in their shelves, the tea bags, slipped in the bin, the pits of the fruits following them.

Sebastian holds Joseph over him as if he was the blanket.

"I feel safe with you," Sebastian whispers against Joseph's forehead, feeling the way the wrinkle between his eyebrows forms as Joseph hears him.  
"Mmmh?" Joseph acknowledges and encourages him.

Sebastian pushes a wild lock out of Joseph's eyes.

"I was terrified to my fucking core at the idea of ever being intimate again," Sebastian begins, his voice so small as if he was scared of letting himself be vulnerable. "After what happened with M—"

Joseph hears him choke on the name and promptly takes his face in the cup of his hands, eyes telling him, low and calm: ' _I know. You don't have to say it out loud_.'  
Sebastian nods as he reads the reassurance in his eyes.

"I think," he starts again, a bit more confident in his voice now, "that after both the fire and… well… _that_ , I had internalized this thought of ' _don't go sleeping with people you love, they're gonna turn on you and something horrific is going to happen!_ '."

He forces a laugh, finds nothing but silent worry in Joseph's eyes. He tries to lighten the atmosphere :

"Don't you turn on me, detective Oda," he forces himself to joke, his voice betraying him and cracking painfully.  
"I wouldn't even think of it," Joseph replies. His voice is clear-cut, almost loud, but not aggressive. "If I ever did, I give you full permission to hate me from the bottom of your guts for the rest of your respective lives."

Sebastian sees this gravity in his dark, heavy gaze, his seriousness, this honor, and his breath hitches in his throat. He stumbles over his own thoughts and sudden malaise. He tightens his grip around Joseph, pulling him in a powerful embrace, and tries to kiss it away. Joseph returns the hold, hands cradling Sebastian's face in an appeasing lull.

"... And, also, well, there was… you know," Sebastian stutters, memories clogging his throat, clouding his voice, dripping, bitter, into his lungs. He gestures vaguely at their entwined, almost naked bodies. "All the old stuff I've internalized that I may not ever fully get rid of."

Joseph curls up against him a bit more. Dark, placid eyes planted onto Sebastian's face, he lets a fingertip run up and down the heavy wrinkle on Sebastian's cheek, feeling how the skin is warm and malleable, kissable under the thick layer of stubble. He hums.  
He knows.

 

          With light-hearted pleasantries and the silent passing of time, Sebastian has retrieved his smile. Joseph's legs, as he lays flat on top of Sebastian, a playful smile accompanying each of his mirthful nudges against the stubbly cheeks, are crossed at the ankles, decadent and indecent.

"Hey," Sebastian hails him between two pressed kisses, "I wanted to thank you for tonight… again. I can't wait to see what's next," he adds, a suggestive wink quickly curtaining his honeyed eye.

At that, Joseph's smile wilts. His gaze, previously firmly planted onto Sebastian's face, slips to the side and stares away. Not quite shy, not quite embarrassed, but rather dour and sour at the thought to be faced with an old secret, Joseph lets himself roll out of Sebastian's hold and off his chest. With a deep sigh, he finds his usual place against his pillow, gaze caught onto the ceiling. Sebastian leans over him, eyebrows raised in concern.

"Joseph…?" he calls, voice meek. "Did I—"  
"You didn't do anything wrong," Joseph cuts him off, frank but not aggressive in his tone. "It's just… I never really knew how to bring it up. I'm a bit… _unsure_ about what's next."  
"Why is that?" Sebastian asks. He leans on an elbow as he settles against his side, closer to Joseph.

He dares a hand over Joseph's chest, careful and slow. An invitation to talk, have Joseph let his heart out. Joseph observes it. Sebastian feels how he relaxes under his touch, how his heartbeat caresses his fingertips through the milky skin of his chest.  
Finally, Joseph takes a hold of the hand on his torso.

"I'm conflicted," Joseph eventually says, voice low, eyes focused on the hand he holds.  
"About what?" Sebastian encourages him, his thumb rubbing mellow circles on the skin.  
"About the time we'll finally have sex."

Sebastian barely audibly chokes on his own spit. He passes the short coughing fit that follows as just him needing to clear his throat when Joseph asks if he's okay.

That caught him off-guard.  
It had been a very real prospect for the past multiple weeks. From the beginning of the relationship, he had time to get used to the eventuality, but still, that caught him off-guard.  
There is something in the simplicity of the way Joseph talks about it that makes Sebastian's heart race.  
_It is real. It is real._ Joseph thinks about it just like he does. It is the realest shit he feels he has lived since his entire life went down the sewer.  
… Having just worked his wrists out to make Joseph cum and having almost lost the usage of his legs to Joseph's frot skills _probably_ should have woken him up to the very real outcome of the next few days or weeks, but he feels as if he's swimming through molasses, slow and painfully oblivious.  
_A dumbass, Sebastian. That's the word._

"How so?" Sebastian encourages Joseph. His voice is low, barely heard, felt against Joseph's temple as he nudges him gently.

Joseph's fingers curl around Sebastian's as he holds his hand against his chest. A little bit stressed, maybe… or impatient.  
In the way Sebastian can see his eyes shine, the gold streaks in his irises disappearing as the deep dark sea of his pupils grows, he guesses he just opened the floodgates. Joseph's breathing loses its even rhythm as he starts to think. Sebastian can see how his lips tremble when he opens his mouth to speak.

"I've been wanting… some very… selfish things."

Joseph's words are low, slightly hoarse, as if something in the back of his throat prevented him from telling his secrets.  
Sebastian nudges him some more, presses a kiss to his jaw, encourages him to carry on as he feels his own heart miss beat after beat against his ribs.

"I don't know how to explain," Joseph begins, voice assured in a way that hints at the fact that he actually knows how to explain, and he will, in a three-part essay. "I've always… wanted to put you — your needs, your safety before mine, and… your desires and wants too."

Sebastian feels like his heart is going to give up, the missed beats caught on with how fast and loud it throbs now, pounding against his ribs like a caged bird struggling for freedom.

"I wanted to learn what gets you off," Joseph continues, and Sebastian feels his own nails dig in his flesh with how much he tries to keep the tiniest bit of control over his pulse, his breath, "I wanted to discover your body with my fingertips, inch by inch, focus on your pleasure as your reaction would heighten mine."

Joseph rearranges his hand in Sebastian's. He starts thoughtlessly playing with his fingers.

"I'd get off to the thought of helping you get off, but… I don't really know what happened next. In the midst of my usual fantasies, I… started wanting things… Just, selfish things."

The word rings in the silent room like church bells in the distance. Sebastian nestles his entire body against Joseph's.

"What kind of 'selfish things'?" he asks, and as Joseph steals a glance in his direction, he sees the tiny smile playing with the corners of his mouth. He lets his own curl in a smile too.

"Well," Joseph begins with a short sigh "I want you to fuck me, first of."

Sebastian feels his entire brain leaving him as his lungs do too. The snort of this frenzied mix of surprise, pleasure, shock and awe that his nose threatens to gracelessly let out is in extremis turned into a coughing fit.

"I selfishly want you for myself in that way," Joseph continues, apparently dead-set on making Sebastian leave his body a second time," even if in my older fantasies you took so much pleasure too."  
"We'll make it work," Sebastian says once he regains some sort of composure, voice light and mellifluous with a new-found joy.

Joseph catches, out of the corner of his eye, his widening smile.

"And, um, on another, but related, note," Joseph starts again, and his free hand quickly runs through his hair in a nervous tic, "I always saw you as a man like _that…_ "

Sebastian raises a confused eyebrow that Joseph doesn't notice.  
_Like that? Like what? Is it a euphemism? It must be._

" ...Especially with… Well, you know, back then," he continues, uninterrupted, gesturing vaguely in a way that _really_ doesn't help Sebastian understand. "But I was thinking… If you ever wanted a switch… I'd be up for it."

 _Oh, "top"! He meant a top. "Like that" as in "tops". Oh!_ Sebastian nods to himself, glad he finally understands Joseph's cryptic previous sentence. As it puts itself into place in his brain, the following sentence comes too, and Sebastian's mind becomes entirely blank as he blinks in surprise.  
Static runs between his ears as his thoughts become a muffled litany of ' _what the fuck? hold on, say that again?_ ' — but Joseph doesn't actually need to say that again. Sebastian, suddenly totally and thoroughly aware, presses insistently against him, lips curled in a dumb smile, heart pounding at his ears as the warmth of Joseph's words fills his chest and abdomen down to his groin.

"O—only if you _really_ want it," Joseph promptly cuts his thoughts, tripping over his words as an embarrassment Sebastian rarely ever saw on his features makes him blush,"if you prefer for it to stay the other way, I'm totally fine w—"  
"So you'd fuck me?" Sebastian interrupts him, and the poorly-concealed excitation, like one of an alchemist discovering the secrets of immortality, that veils his voice makes Joseph glance at him.

Sebastian's face lights up as the fervor painting his traits makes his golden eyes shine brighter. His heavy lashes bat multiple times to the melody of his breathing losing its rhythm with enthusiasm. As Joseph stares at his expressive visage, stupefaction changes into a thin-veiled eagerness, his own eyes widening in realization. His underwear, poking up from the most discreet of boners, catches Sebastian's eye as he glances down.

"I would," Joseph answers.

His voice is so low, so warm, cracks a bit on the words. Sebastian hears in it the release of years of unadmitted thoughts, firmly-contained fantasies, shelves in the mind filled with mason jars of reveries whose lids have been sealed tight.

"I gladly would," he repeats, and his words are now deliberate, deep, almost dark but not threatening. They sound like a promise and a commitment.

Sebastian's body shivers in pleasure and he dives onto Joseph's lips for a kiss. Joseph welcomes him with an arm around his neck, mouth curled into a slightly bewildered smile, cushiony, warm and wet against Sebastian's

"You've ever…?" Joseph begins as their lips part.  
"Yeah," Sebastian promptly answers, a fond smile on his face as he strokes Joseph's cheek with a playful thumb, "only once, though, but the guy knew what he was doing. It was nice."

Cupping Joseph's face to plant a kiss on his forehead, glee like sunshine on his curved mouth, Sebastian adds:

"I can't wait to see what it'll be with you."

His cheerful words bring into the room an apneic silence as Joseph weights his declaration on the tip of his tongue — and as he swallows Sebastian's promise in the peck they share, he pulls him down onto him, hungry again, awakened to new lights he had only ever dreamed of. Sebastian's chuckle against his teeth tastes like heaven.

"Hey," Sebastian presses him, voice jolly, once Joseph is satisfied with the newfound prospects tasting sweet on his lips, "tell me about what you'd want."

Joseph raises an eyebrow from behind his foggy glasses.

"What you'd want me to do, to give you," Sebastian continues, encouraging Joseph with playful nudges against his jaw. "What you are into. Let yourself be selfish for once," his voice sweetens, drips onto Joseph's lips like honey as he offers a kiss, "You've earned it. I'll deliver. Tell me."

As he slowly leans back, Sebastian sees Joseph's face bearing this almost embarrassed, theatrically tragic and over-the-top pained mix of a smile and a comical grimace.

"Aw, c'mon, Joe," Sebastian chuckles, "tell me."

"Seb, this is embarrassing," Joseph huffs, a slight smile still painting his face as he gently pushes Sebastian off him.  
" _Joseph_ ," Sebastian begins, voice carrying a very gentle mocking tune, "we just rubbed dicks so hard I thought I had ascended. I think you can tell me," he insists, a small chuckle escaping his lips.

Joseph crosses his arms over his face and groans in shame.

"Oh, _now_ we're embarrassed!", Sebastian laughs as he takes hold of one of Joseph's hands to encourage him. "Well we weren't embarrassed when it was time to rub my damn dick so hard I thought I was going to pass out, were we?"  
"Okay, okay," Joseph finally surrenders as he chortles from beneath the arm still covering his face. He finally comes out of hiding, and his slightly shy look makes Sebastian's mouth go dry.  
"Well, unless it's, um. Very, _very_ weird," Sebastian quickly adds, more humorous than anything.  
"We should be fine," Joseph replies with an amused sigh. "I'm not really into weird stuff."

With a small, barely audible ' _let me think_ ', Joseph steps into his daydreaming world. His eyes graze over the ceiling as he tentatively opens the mason jars filled with unspoken fantasies lingering in the shelves of this memories.

"Wow, that many, huh," Sebastian giggles after Joseph had kept silent for a little while.  
"Shut up," Joseph interjects with a laugh, "I'm trying to find an order to put them in."

 

          Sebastian rests on his stomach, an arm slipped under his pillow, the other lazily brushing the tender skin of Joseph's rib cage.

"The first one would be… I would rather," Joseph begins with a sigh that shakes with something like the scratching of an old wound, "that we kept pain to a minimum."

As raises a confused eyebrow, he catches, out of the corner of his eye, one of Joseph's hand firmly clasping itself over the skin that once tore under the bullet.  
_The bullet…_  
The fingers close on the flesh. The nails dig in, in the way one does, frantic, desperate, to keep the blood from pouring.  
Sebastian crawls to Joseph's side, panic rising his throat as Joseph's breathing trips and stumbles, and takes him into a powerful embrace, pulling him firmly against his chest.

"Hey, hey," Sebastian calls, mouth to Joseph's temple, "Joseph, Joseph, breathe. Breathe. I'm not going to hurt you. I won't hurt you. Even if you asked me to, I couldn't."  
"But I won't ask you to—" Joseph begins, barely a whisper.  
"But you won't ask me to hurt you," Sebastian picks up, and they finish in a same voice.

Sebastian runs a hand through Joseph's locks and puls him close. He whispers reassurances against his skin that Joseph curls into.

 

          Having retrieved his calm, Joseph holds lazily onto Sebastian's hand.  
With a closing of his eyes, a rising of his eyebrows and a long sigh, he speaks again:

"I… have a thing for being praised," he says, something that sounds like shame tinting his voice as he speaks slowly.  
"Yeah," Sebastian simply replies, a warm chuckle slipping past his lips, "I noticed."

Joseph's eyes snap open and he throws a distressed glance at Sebastian.

"Baby," Sebastian laughs frankly, amused and adoring, barely noticing how Joseph tries to poorly conceal a shiver of bliss at the pet name, "you can't get a half-boner to my face when I say you're good and then tell me you _don't_ have a praise kink."  
"You didn't say I was good," Joseph huffs, almost sulky, "You said I was _'incredible'_..."  
"Yeah, yeah," Sebastian hums, charmed, "whatever I said… You like it when I say you're good."

Watching Joseph roll his eyes, Sebastian extends his arm to pet the poofy black locks on top of his lover's head.

" _Do not!_ " Joseph promptly interrupts him, shielding his hair from Sebastian's hand.  
"What, is it another kink you're ashamed of having?" Sebastian chuckles. He starts wiggling his fingers, playfully threatening poor Joseph with pats.  
"It's not," Joseph answers, "and I'm trying to keep it that way."

Sebastian bursts out laughing and captures Joseph in an excitable hug.

"What else?" Sebastian enlivens Joseph, voice cheerful and smile wide, "What else?"  
"I don't know how I can really say anything. It feels too blunt… I'm not used to being this… vulgar."  
"Hey, I like it," Sebastian chuckles.

Joseph lets out a long sigh of both surrender and unease, a bit uncomfortable on this new territory.

"I like dick, I guess I could say," he lets out bluntly, causing Sebastian to almost choke on his own spit for the third time, "and I would gladly suck you off if you ever asked."

Sebastian managed a stunned nod, mouth agape. Joseph is too busy being conflicted about his own admission to notice.  
As he plays thoughtlessly with one of Sebastian's hand he found a hold of, Joseph's eyes close half-way in what feels like shame, and looks like it too. He blushes a red Sebastian doesn't ever remember seeing on him.

"Um… My, uh, nipples are very… sensitive."

Sebastian watches, amazed, the way Joseph, Mr. Oda himself, the most competent detective he's ever known (because, let's face it, it's easy to shine next to him), writhes in embarrassment as his blush reddens, posture and hands still holding dignity and elegance in a very strange spectacle.

"You like them played with?" Sebastian asks, trying to contain the emotion in his voice as he jubilates, mind also running mad with how strange and incredible and bizarre this all is for him.

A few months ago, he was swimming in sewers filled with guts and blood, and now he is asking his colleagues of almost a decade is he likes his nipples played with. He feels excited and frantic like a kid who just found a treasure chest in his backyard.

"Yeah," Joseph admits after clearing his throat, eyes diverting in unease and, catching in his peripheral vision Sebastian's insistent face staring at him with these big brown eyes, he adds "... licking, gentle pinching, a little nibbling… not too much teeth… You know," he promptly finishes.  
"Noted," Sebastian says, this dumb smile still quirking his lips.  
"And, well," Joseph continues, eagerness transpiring through his loosening shame, "I wouldn't mind… reciprocating."

Sebastian pushes himself on an elbow and lays a cheek in the palm of his open hand, smile widening.

"Ooh," he teases, "so it's generalized nipple thing. A thing for man chests. For man pecs. For man boobs."  
"Yeah," Joseph cuts him off, huffing, "yeah, yeah."  
"Is this why you would shove your entire face between my—"  
" _Yes_ , okay? Yes," Joseph interrupts again.

Sebastian's face lights up with tender fondness, eyes closing in yearning the way enamored cats do, and suddenly Joseph is not mad anymore.

"What about you?" Joseph asks, having retrieved his place in Sebastian's arms.  
"Me? Mmh…"

 

          Joseph adores the deep wrinkles on each of Sebastian's cheeks with tender fingertips and kisses as he thinks.

"Well, I mean… I'm a lover-pleaser," Sebastian finally starts, "I get my rocks off to helping my partner gets theirs."  
"Well, that's exactly what I said earlier," Joseph laughs warmly against Sebastian's skin.  
"We're gonna have to battle to know who gets to get the other off first," Sebastian jokes as he presses a kiss to Joseph's forehead.  
"I'm sure we'll figure something out," a pleased hum answers him. "Otherwise, we can do rock-paper-scissors."  
"Because that's what adults do," Sebastian's guttural, but almost soundless laugh adds. Joseph's follows.  
"Anything else?" he asks.

Sebastian thinks. He lets Joseph support his chin with his head as he nestles against his neck.

"Well, huh. To stay on the blunt side of things, I'm… quite into ass."

Joseph' head pokes out of under Sebastian's chin, hair comically ruffled, like a big, hirsute bird.

"Oh, yeah?" he asks, tone slightly playful, visibly suddenly very invested. "Now _that's_ interesting."  
"Isn't it?" Sebastian agrees, voice ringing with frisky notes. "It's mostly, almost only with men, though."  
"Really?"  
"Do you think it's weird?"  
"Not really. I mean, I sure am not going to complain," Joseph teases, "and I'm not here to psychoanalyze your thing for only male asses."  
"I appreciate it," Sebastian says, a tender smile curling his lips, more at the vision of Joseph snuggling up against him than at his words.

Joseph curls out of his hold to stretch longly. He groans like a very naked, glasses-wearing type of cat, and settles back against Sebastian.

"Maybe we should keep that for another time," Joseph suggests, "and not our very first."  
"However you'd like," Sebastian nods.

 

          Nestling his head in the crook of his neck, Joseph lets a lazy finger run on Sebastian's lips. He lets himself feel the slight healed creases of previously chapped lips, the wet, the dry, the scar that runs not-so-deep into the flesh anymore.  
As Sebastian raises a confused, but fond eyebrow, Joseph whispers, playful, voice ringing with lascivious undertones:

"And to say you kiss me with that filthy mouth…"  
"Just wait until I suck you off with it," Sebastian replies, the same merriness bouncing between his words.

And at that, Sebastian can feel, poking hard against his thigh, Joseph newly-propped boner.

 

          Joseph got up to have a glass of water once, came back, rolled on the bed as he tried to pop an unpleasantly stuck vertebra. Sebastian let him flop gracelessly into his arms.

"Joseph," Sebastian calls him softly. As he is answered a curious hum, he continues: "Don't you ever feel like it's weird, how we changed?"

Joseph blinks once in acknowledgment, curiosity and encouragement.

"A few months ago," Sebastian carries on, "I was this absolute mess of a man. A wreck. I was all touch and rough, barely ever cracking — even though I've always been soft at heart, like I was with… with Lily."

Joseph hears his breath hitching his throat, sees the way his lips tremble as he struggles to start speaking again.

"I feel like you've… opened me. I'm still — I mean, you've seen me at work when we got back, I haven't changed much here, but… I feel… changed. Just. Changed."

He lets a hand run in Joseph's hair.

"You look like a tough, serious, aggressive man," Joseph begins, his voice poised and controlled, "but inside, you are a lovable, excitable, loving man who gets way too excited at having his dick rubbed and reacts like someone who has never had sex to someone telling you they want to give you head," he ever-so-slightly teases, gaining a short, almost offended huff from Sebastian. "And… you don't know if that's something you always had in you… or something new. And you don't know either if it is new in an organic way, or if what you lived shaped this new ability, these new thoughts, and new feelings."

Silence falls into the room, heavy curtain like a reassuring blanket. As the kitchen clock echoes to the side of their bed, Sebastian stares, exaggeratedly confused and suspicious, as Joseph.

"... Are you a mind-reader?" he finally asks.  
"Not quite," Joseph chuckles. "I… feel the same way, too."

Sebastian repositions himself, cheek pressed to the top of Joseph's head.

"You look like someone who has his shit together," Sebastian begins, "who's strict and almost prudish to the point many think you're a killjoy, but you're actually all soft inside, and also very horny…"

Joseph lets out a breathless chortle.

"... And I don't know if it's something I've always had in me to this extent, or if you, or what happened these past few months, are bringing it out in me," he finishes Sebastian's sentence.

Sebastian holds him tighter.

"Also, I could read you because I took psychology classes," Joseph chuckles. "That's something I did."

Time is walking again. Sebastian and Joseph pulled the blanket over their entwined bodies, legs tangled like vine. One of Sebastian's hand runs, lazy and loving, up and down one of Joseph's thigh. One of Joseph's hand, the one who isn't slipped under the pillow, caresses the stubbly plain of Sebastian's cheek, the thumb always lodging itself, for some adoring seconds, in the hollow of his deep wrinkle.  
Lashes pull the curtain of the lids, batting heavily as sleep catches on. The day will be reborn at any time now, and time walks loose again, slow in its dance as it is unleashed.  
Joseph's low hum echoes in his chest, making his heart dance to strums like those of a pinched violin string, vibrations ringing out in the cage of his ribs, touching Sebastian's heart through the skin.  
Slow, slow, like a feverish waltz coming to its end.

 

          Time has to stop in its path, just for a second, as Joseph whispers, voice muffled by the heavy silence, only for Sebastian to hear:

"I can't wait for you to fuck me."  
"I can't wait to get to fuck you," Sebastian responds.

And with that, they share a smile. And with that, Time carries on, unbothered, carrying the two men's words in its lap, preserving them in amber unto the ages of as Sebastian and Joseph will preserve them in their mind.

 

 


	14. Eurythmics (Celandine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This behavior is not work-appropriate.

          Sebastian's strict "No Boners at Work" policy that he had firmly decided for himself is even harder to comply with the following days.  
Joseph seems to have read Sebastian's mind, and something in his all formal and proper detective mind became dead-set into pushing his poor partner to break his code.

"What is it, detective," Joseph teases to Sebastian slipping a disapproving glance in his direction as he runs a playful gloved hand over the curve of his ass, "you've decided _now_ that you wanted to follow the rules?"  
"Hey," Sebastian interjects with a titter, "do you remember how much shit you used to give me for not going by the book?"  
"There's a difference between having… _peculiar_ interrogation methods and pretending you're _not at all_ thinking of bending me over one of these desks, baby," Joseph replies, a tone of amused glee ringing in his low voice.

Sebastian promptly turns to him, mouth open to tell him he wasn't at all thinking about that, but he was.  
He was.

Joseph trots to the forensics department, throwing a playful look at Sebastian from over his shoulder as he walks out of their shared office.

 

          The building stands tall in the dormant city, vibrating to the heartbeat of its nightly life. The steps in the hallways are slow and sparse, the lights silver and bright in the rooms that the brown gold of the street lights barely touches.  
As if time was thick and syrupy, the police department runs sluggish and drony. Voices heard lower, almost hushed, as questions fill rooms after rooms. Fighting somnolence by walking from division to division, the few people still exhausting the drinks and snacks machines carry agitation in their empty cups as if to keep the clock running.

"Thank God criminality has gone down in these past few months," Andrea starts as Sebastian, standing in front of the coffee machine, helps her fit three cups of coffee in her tiny hands, "we're understaffed, at night. It's like the guys out there make themselves easy to catch and deal with past 9 PM."  
"Well," Sebastian begins with a small laugh, "they're in their digestion phase. That makes them a bit slow."  
"Maybe!" the young woman chuckles, and she trots out of the room, eyes focused on the drinks. "Also, I'm switching the hallway light off. You two don't worry if no one comes in here, we're having some computer trouble and we're all trying to fix that as soon as we can."  
"Is it serious?" Joseph asks as he walks past Sebastian to select his desired drink on the machine.  
"I don't think so," the young woman replies, holding the door open with her foot. "My guess would be that the servers are down. Hopefully, it doesn't take long to reboot."

Andrea slips through the partially opened door and peeks her head into the room one last time:

"You're lucky that Joseph insists on keeping physical files, Sebastian," she giggles, "You don't have to worry about any of that!"  
"Well, you're not the one writing them" Sebastian laughs as she disappears out of the room.

Sebastian watches Andrea's silhouette disappear at the end of the hallway as she switches the light off. He then glances at Joseph, nonchalantly stirring his drink with a spoon. He catches, feeling a spark of electricity flash down his spine, Joseph's look over his shoulder, impish in the way it unabashedly teases him.  
As Sebastian makes a step in his direction, Joseph's lips curl in a smirk.

"What is it with you, _Mr. Oda_ ," Sebastian playfully scolds him, shamelessly pressing his hips to the curve of Joseph's ass, "and such an _improper_ behavior at work, today?"

Joseph enticingly bucks against Sebastian's loins, diligently rousing the shy dawn of the boner Joseph can feel against his backside.

"Look at who is talking," Joseph retorts, blissfully amused, "Grinding against me so inappropriately, while our poor colleagues are grappling with the vagaries of technology…"

He stirs his drink some more and smirks when Sebastian places a frenzied hand on his hip. He feels him lean into his neck to whisper, voice low, hoarse from concealing the fervor burning in the pit of his stomach:

"Are you trying to pull me into your old 'fucking at work' fantasies tonight, Joseph?"  
"I don't know, _am I_?" And with that, Joseph straightens his back, pressing it to Sebastian's chest, and takes a nonchalant and noisy sip of his drink.

Sebastian blinks in surprise.  
He expected that, he really did, he just… wasn't _physically_ ready.  
He loops an arm around Joseph's chest to pull him against his. He presses a kiss to his throat and revels in the way Joseph stretches his neck on the side to allow him better access.

"God," Sebastian chuckles against Joseph's fair skin, "you are one hell of a horndog."  
"Last time I was this horny, I was nineteen and just discovered I liked sucking dick," Joseph almost purrs, mischief in his lowered voice as he offers a taunting glance in Sebastian's direction.  
"A noble passion," Sebastian hums. A smile toys with the corner of his lips as they wander the warm, milky skin of Joseph's neck.  
"Thank you," he hears as an answer, Joseph's teasing voice echoing as a shiver under his kiss, "I can't wait to show you my progress."

Sebastian's fingers dig involuntarily into Joseph's hips as his playful words wreck him to his core. He hears Joseph's laughter ring to his ears like the bells of a distant church as he seems to thoroughly enjoy making a delightful, horny mess out of Sebastian's mind.

"Did you get off to the thought of getting caught? Of the thrill of knowing you could get walked on?" he teases, voice hoarse, cracking softly, as he tries to regain a semblance of control, enjoying how Joseph presses himself against him.  
"Not really," Joseph answers, suddenly thoughtful.

Sebastian lets out a surprised ' _Oh_?' as his lips reach Joseph's collarbone, hands slowly pulling the collar of his shirt wider.

"I would dream of locking everyone out just so I could give you head from under that huge desk of yours. Have the whole building for us," Joseph recalls, ruminating as he takes a distracted sip of his drink.  
"Ha, _huge desk_ huh," Sebastian mumbles, a childish chuckle escaping his lips.  
" _Sebastian_ ," Joseph scolds him with a snort, "if this is a dick joke—"  
"It's not," Sebastian hums, still laughing, "it's nooot…"

He patiently waits for Joseph to finish his drink, and once the cup has been discarded, he pulls Joseph in his embrace and has them waltz awkwardly. Joseph laughs blissfully as they trip over their own and the other's feet. Eventually finding each other face to face, a delighted smile is shared between them.

"If I remember correctly," Sebastian begins, smirk playful and lighthearted, "you had _many_ plans for us in this building."  
"I did," Joseph hums, slipping a wild lock back behind Sebastian's ear, "but alas, unless I find a way to monopolize the whole department for an entire day, these plans will stay fantasies."  
"An entire day!" Sebastian whistles in impression. "You'd need quite a big 'KEEP OUT — FUCKING SCENE' for that."  
"I would," Joseph hums, a smirk toying with his lips.

His hands slide, mellow and tender, to Sebastian's cheeks.  
Sebastian feels the way Joseph's brings his face to his mouth as their lips part, the tip of his tongue peeking alluringly, carrying Joseph's heart in the pink of its tone.  
Sebastian lets his lips land on Joseph's, feeling how supple they are under his mouth, how his nose presses into Joseph's smooth cheek when he gently nudges him against the nearest wall.

Sebastian watches how Joseph's lips purse when they part with a soft wet sound, how his eyes half-open to observe the pink of their mouths, then the gold of his eyes.  
Joseph's tender gaze longs over him, a gloved thumb distractingly rubbing Sebastian's cheek, before suddenly turning hungry again.  
A shiver of want sets Sebastian's lungs ablaze. He falls into Joseph's open heart, lips diving in for more.  
_More, more, more!_  
Joseph is generous, his love plentiful and he welcomes Sebastian with an open mouth, a tongue eager and an embrace like a vine around his shoulders.  
Sebastian's hands lose themselves on Joseph's hips, waist, flanks. They grab as they pull him closer, they press him against Sebastian's chest as if he wanted to shelter Joseph between his ribs.  
The raw instinct of animalistic protection.  
Joseph almost laps at Sebastian's mouth, feral as he quenches his thirst at the well of Sebastian's lips. Sebastian feels how he pulls him in, a siren luring a man to his death — and he dives right in.  
One of Joseph's legs hooks itself around the back of Sebastian's thigh and a hand flies to support it, sliding to the curve of the ass. Sebastian revels in how Joseph tugs at his belt — alluring for the sake of being alluring, an empty promise only leading him on, but god, it is heavenly.

The particular sound of a switch being turned on clicks loudly in the silent hallway and the two men jump off the other to stand three feet apart.  
Andrea's excited face peeks at the end of the corridor, and her clear voice echoes between the walls :

"The servers are back up, guys!"

And it takes Sebastian every single ounce of self-control that can be found in his large body to restrain himself, and he still fails, huffing through gritted teeth his loud thought:

"... and my boner too."

Joseph hears it. With a satisfied glance in his direction, he swings his hips in a victory dance that is  _definitively_ trying to get Sebastian's dick hard.

 

          Coming home to the stuffy and warm bedroom made suffocating by a burning afternoon sun, Joseph and Sebastian peel off their clothes as they trot to the bathroom. They bump into walls everytime they get distracted trying to kiss. Joseph chuckles everytime Sebastian lets out a muffled curse as he hits a piece of furniture trying to steal a kiss from Joseph's smile. He pulls Sebastian into a kiss as they jump under the shower and the warm water cascades onto their entwined bodies, barely able to slip between them as they hold the other close, wanting to melt into the other's chest just as they melt into the other's mouth.

Joseph doesn't kneel between Sebastian's legs to clean him anymore, and _god, thank god_ , Sebastian thinks. There is this shared, unspoken thought between them. Suspended between their lips every time they kiss, it says that there soon will be a night where everything will come undone. A strange chastity lingers under their touch to the other's skin, the thin rope of desire bending under the weight of their entwined bodies on the mattress.

 

          Modesty and restraint they abide by between two guiltless, self-gratifying fondling sessions, the simple thought of holding back making them laugh against the other's tongue.

Pulling the other into their hold as water is pouring over them, they wander the other's body with eager hands and explore the depths of welcoming mouths.  
They kiss and lean in and away and lose their balance. Joseph finds them stability by leaning against the wall.

"A bit eager, aren't we?" he chuckles. Sebastian almost trips onto his lap trying to hold him up.  
"I almost threw my back out," Sebastian groans, a pained laugh escaping his lips.

When Joseph eagerly resumes their kissing, Sebastian starts to think he feels like a teenager again. He barely remembers being eighteen, the memories of his adolescence have grown clouded with the overpowering fog of the past few years, nor does he remember ever making out in the shower... But _goddamn_ , he thinks, if there's a single he would have thought smelt like teen spirit, it would be it.  
Kissing limitlessly, intoxicated, drunk on Joseph's mint breath. Taking awkward, waltzing steps as Joseph pulls him into his hold, into his mouth, devouring his soul at the brim of his lips, restless, relentless, merciless, and unthinkably gorgeous.  
Sebastian feels reborn.

 

          Joseph's head rests heavily onto Sebastian's shoulder. He rubs a distracted hand up and down Joseph's back.  
Joseph chuckles softly as Sebastian's fingers trace his nap, tickling, fingertips drawing the few vertebrae raised from his skin.  
Sebastian's hand travels down his spine, almost nonchalant, before taking a handful of Joseph's ass.

"You'll get that soon enough, I promise," Joseph hums, his lips pressed in a smile against Sebastian's skin.  
"Is that a teasing?" Sebastian laughs softly against Joseph's temple.  
"It's a promise."

_Oh boy!_

 

 


	15. Alchemy (Coriander, Coral Rose, Tilia)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As inevitable as the falling of our sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is it, huh. this is the chapter that all this fic was build around. everything those 40k words were for.  
> this is it! this is what i promised myself. this is what i was adamant was going to "just be 5k!!!" and ended up being 50k+.  
> this chapter is also 12k+ words long.  
> it's saying a bit about how out of control i am.  
> i hope it's readable. i wrote it at 4am. this is the life i've chosen for myself.
> 
> enjoy, babes.

          Joseph scuffles with the hurriedly-tied knot of his tie, hands fidgeting with the fabric slipping between his gloved fingers.

"Has she called back yet?" he asks Sebastian, hunched over his phone laid flat on his desk.

"Not yet," he answers. "Honestly, I'm afraid she canceled. She said her friend was feeling sick this afternoon."

Joseph paces around. A few long strides make him cross the room one way and back.

"God," he groans, running a hand in his hair, "I feel so tacky with this heat. If I had known Andrea would take so long to call back, I'd have done like you and taken a shower once we got home."  
"Maybe she's having issues with her reservation at the restaurant," Sebastian tries to appease Joseph walking around stressfully.  
"I have the feeling she's going to cancel the invitation," Joseph mumbles as he takes his gloves off and on again. "It adds up."

As Joseph gets ready for another frenetic walk across the room, Sebastian stops him in his tracks. Joseph blinks in surprise. Sebastian takes both of his fidgeting hands into his and bringing them to his chest.

"Hey — hey, Joseph, calm down, calm down," he enunciates calmly, bringing Joseph's gaze to his eyes. "She's going to call back soon. If the invitation to dinner still stands, we will go and have a lovely time. Neither of her or her friend will even notice you're sticky, as even I don't. If the dinner is canceled, we'll stay at home. You'll be able to take a shower, and I'll make us dinner in a few hours."

Joseph's impatience, making his brown eyes darker as he squints in irritability, lifts from his face as Sebastian holds his hands still. His eyebrows relax first, then his eyes blink once, finding Sebastian's. The golden streaks of his irises reappear as he slowly calms down, letting out a light sigh of surrender.

"You're right," he finally says, and his fingers curl around Sebastian's. "You're right. I'm sorry for nagging you earlier."  
"Don't worry about it," Sebastian whispers, a reassuring smile softly digging into his cheeks.

They stay in silence. Sebastian distracts Joseph from the uneasiness piling onto his shoulders from feeling tacky and things not going to plan by playing thoughtlessly with his fingers, holding the back of his hand in his palm, toying with the hem of his gloves.  
Joseph tilts his head back as he sighs again.  
Sebastian's phone buzzes loudly against the wood of his table, and he leans over the screen.

"Yeah," he lets out after spending a few seconds reading the received text, "Andrea says dinner's canceled. Apparently, her friend got a bad heat stroke and she had to rush her to the hospital."  
"Oh god," Joseph hisses in empathy as if he was hurt himself. "Tell her I hope everything goes fine and wish her a fast recovery."

One hand still holding Joseph's and the other typing scrupulously typing a response, a single finger used to hit the keys one by one, Sebastian hunches over the screen of his phone.

"She says thanks," he says after a reply reaches him, "and she hopes we can, I quote, 'find entertaining ways to spend the evening'."

Sebastian glances at Joseph. Joseph glances at Sebastian. Awkward looks are directed at the screen.

"Does she… Do you think she…" Joseph tries to begin, eyes fleeing from Sebastian's face to the phone.  
"I don't think so. She better not. Unless she planned to ask us tonight."  
"In front of her friend?" Joseph chuckles.  
"Hey, I mean," Sebastian laughs at his turn, focusing his eyes back on Joseph, "I once had Connelly ask me what a 'size queen' was during the coffee break."

Joseph makes an inhuman noise as he tries, and fails, to contain a fit of laughter.

"What is going on with our colleagues?" Joseph asks, an astonished chortle escaping his lips.

Sebastian doesn't answer, and only retrieves his hold on Joseph's hands with a light chuckle.

 

          They stay in silence for a while, Sebastian toying with Joseph's hand. Andrea's strange message hangs in the air, hovering over their head in the warm room. The awkwardness coating the atmosphere suffers a sudden crack, and through it shines the silver sun of something more.  
Joseph's and Sebastian's eyes meet again.  
It floats in their gazes, alluring. It ignites the thirst in their loins yet bears the promise of quenching it.  
_Hunger, hunger._  
They could dive in a kiss just to satisfy it, right there, right now.  
Sebastian pulls Joseph onto his lap, hands slow, tentative, walking cautiously the tightrope over the neverending abyss of appetite open like a mouth under his feet.  
He knows that the smallest gesture, the most discreet of gazes he gives that bears an ounce too much of lust will make them both go mad, and they see, in the way they move, the way they lean in for a kiss, that they want to take their time.  
Consume it slow.  
Joseph slips onto his lap. He cradles Sebastian's cheeks in his gloved hands and pulls him into a kiss.

It's chaste, restrained, limited but not restricted.  
Joseph's hand run over Sebastian's cheeks thoughtlessly. He gives the smallest purses of his lips, enjoying the way Sebastian tries to capture them, mouth falling ever-so-slightly open as Joseph nudges against it.  
Sebastian's hands wander the clothed plains of Joseph's back, rubbing between his shoulder blades to pull him closer. The tip of his faltering tongue peeks from between his lips and Joseph welcomes it between his, hands on the back of Sebastian's neck.

"Hey," Joseph calls him, a hushed chuckle warming his whisper against Sebastian's lips, "hey, hey," he laughs louder as Sebastian licks at his open mouth like a very excited dog, "Let me take a shower. I'm going to take my shower, get dressed, we're going to have a relaxing evening, we're going to make dinner, then eat, then we'll enjoy our night."

There's something so deliciously teasing in Joseph's voice as he kisses Sebastian again, light, fleeting, giving pecks over Sebastian's open lips as he tries to speak.

"Will you still want it by then?" Sebastian asks when he manages to slightly lean away from Joseph's seeking lips. "We can put it off to another day if you just want to relax."

Joseph catches Sebastian's eyes by leaning away and staring right into his irises. Slowly looking down, he encourages Sebastian's gaze down with him.  
Sebastian's eyebrows rise in a pleasant surprise when his eyes meet the tenting of Joseph's pants over his crotch.

"I'll be fine," Joseph says.

He delivers a last peck to Sebastian's lips and trots to the bathroom, grabbing a batch of clothes on his way out.  
Sebastian leans against the desk behind him, letting out a long sigh, an irrepressible smile toying with the corners of his mouth. As he dares a quick glance, he sees that Joseph hasn't closed the bathroom door.

 

          Sebastian can see Joseph's silhouette, wrapped in his teal bathrobe, through the partially open door. Joseph's head peeks through, glasses pushed up from the bridge of his nose and onto a nest of wet dark locks. He offers a knowing smile. Sebastian catches the invitation in his nonchalant walk out of his view and to the sink, and he promptly gets up.

Joseph's fingers ruffle thoughtlessly through his locks as Sebastian catches him watching him in the mirror. He's pretending to be very busy combing his hair, yet Sebastian sees the little smirk spreading on his face as he comes closer and embraces his body wrapped in the fuzzy robe.

" _Sebastian_ ," Joseph scolds him playfully, "can't you see I'm busy?"  
"Like hell you are," Sebastian laughs warmly into his neck as he leans in to kiss it, pulling Joseph into his hold.

Joseph lets out a theatrical sigh of surrender and picks up a comb. As he runs it nonchalantly through his locks, gaze still locked on Sebastian as he watches him in the mirror, their eyes meet each others' reflections on the glass.  
Holding Sebastian's gaze, Joseph pretends to comb his hair with slower hands, taking a painstaking time in his little performance. Sebastian plays in, eyes not leaving the burning path of Joseph's stare onto him, and bites lightly into the exposed flesh of his neck.  
Joseph lets out a sharp, breathless, noiseless moan.

"So, this is how you want to play," Joseph whispers, his warm breath dragging a cloud onto his reflection, voice trembling in his throat.  
"Is it?" Sebastian hums and, with a delicate dive of his teeth into the tender flesh of Joseph's neck, barely leaving marks in his delicateness, his hands wander up the back of his thighs before disappearing under his robe.

Joseph lets out a sharp inhale and stumbles against the sink. He grabs the edges for support.  
He can feel, sending a shiver up his spine and warmth to pool in his loins — dripping lower, warm and heavy, like honey —, Sebastian's hands running over his bare, and still slightly wet, skin.  
With an excruciating composure, almost teasingly slow, Sebastian's fingers find a light hold over Joseph's hips. The slightly calloused fingertips dig lightly into the skin, almost worshipping in the way they find then leave their place, like god-fearing men walking into a holy realm.  
Joseph dares to peek over his shoulder. He finds Sebastian's gaze as he kisses tenderly the bite marks he dug.  
Sebastian offers a long, taunting blink, a heavy gaze from under heavier lashes, and he firmly grips Joseph's hips before pulling them to his own.  
Joseph lets out a sharp noise of surprise. It melts into a moan as Sebastian pushes the hem of his robe up, revealing the curve of Joseph's ass as it is pressed to his hips.  
Joseph feels a hand coming to pet the small of his back, Sebastian's thumb finding a prime rubbing spot in the dimples overlooking the arc of his buttocks.

"Okay," Joseph tries to articulate as Sebastian's hold tightens over his hips, pressing the noticeable bulge at the front of his pants against Joseph's backside, "okay, Seb, we — _ah_ , we need to keep some for tonight."

Sebastian lets out a playful smile as he lines a few necks in the crook of Joseph's neck.

"You're right," he hums, "you're right. I'll let you finish brushing your hair," he adds with a smirk that means ' _I know your hairstyle's the least of your concerns right now_ '.

Joseph thanks him. His voice is breathless as he strains his hold over the edge of the sink, needing all the support the poor basin has to offer as Sebastian squeezes and spreads nimbly one of his asscheeks.  
Joseph contains another embarrassing noise as Sebastian kisses him chastely on the cheek, and watches him trot out of the bathroom.  
Joseph has to close the door behind him before he lets out a pathetic, needy whine, pressing a hand to his aching cock.

 

          Joseph comes back into the room. He has a clean shirt on his back, pleated pants on his legs, and a serene smile hiding trouble on his face.  
Sebastian, laying on the bed, arms nonchalantly crossed behind his head, offers a taunting little smile as Joseph walks in. As if nothing had happened, he walks to the desk. There, he lays flat his pair of gloves. He then walks to his side of the bed, rests against his own set of pillows, crosses his legs at the ankles.  
Sebastian rolls on his side to look at him, smirk loving and playful. He reaches out, hand warm, and sets his palm onto Joseph's chest, feeling the way his heartbeat bolts under his skin as Joseph tries to pretend nothing is happening.  
He crawls closer and nudges Joseph gently in the crook of his jaw. Sebastian appreciates the way a breathy, small chuckle manages to escape him through his tight-locked lips as he tries to keep control over himself.  
Joseph glances at him from under the thick frame of his glasses, eyes tenderly scolding.  
Sebastian pushes himself on an elbow to offer a small kiss at the corner of Joseph's lips — an invitation, a hushed declaration, and a small question, awaiting an answer: ' _Do you still want to?_ '  
Joseph's mouth curls in a smile as Sebastian's barely leaves his skin.

"We need to wait until dinner," Joseph states, voice low as Sebastian leans into his neck to kiss him again.  
"Do we?" Sebastian asks. His voice rings of something spirited, subtly impish.

Joseph blinks once. His mouth twists in an exaggerated grimace of agreement. Sebastian watches the way he suddenly focuses his gaze on him, reads in the deep dark of his widening pupils a hunger he has already seen, but never truly faced.  
Sebastian dives into the cradle of Joseph's hands as they reach of his cheeks. He welcomes Joseph's mouth to his as he finds himself pushed on his back under his lover's weight.  
An excited giggle breaks through the lock of their lips and he helps Joseph settle over him, cupping his thighs with unashamed hands. Joseph's fingers grip at the buttons of his shirt and Sebastian feels him try to unfasten them, phalanges unsteady, shaking with want, this _craving_ wrecking Joseph's body from head to toe as he dips into Sebastian's open mouth like a lost soul into a marble stoup of holy water.

Joseph has been pushed over his edge, has broken free of his own restraints. His lips, his hands, they run over Sebastian's lips, face, jaw, throat, chest, with a raw, animalistic freedom he has never felt.  
He drinks each of Sebastian's moans at the brim of his mouth, letting his breathless, panting gasps fill the nave of his mouth. When their lips break apart for a few seconds, Joseph glances down as Sebastian's hands find their way to the buttons of his shirt. Observing each nimble movements of Sebastian's fingers from under his lashes, Joseph laps up the thin trail of saliva still connecting their reddening mouths. He feels Sebastian's hands part each of his shirttails and his palm finds a hold over his ribs.

Sebastian lets his hand linger over Joseph's skin, almost hesitant. He has heard Joseph, he has listened to his desires as he declared them in the bluntest way one could do, and yet, now, he is shy. The fear making his fingertips twitch doesn't paralyze, doesn't make him taste his own heart against his tongue — it barely makes him wait, wait for an answer he was already given.  
He feels the way Joseph's lips tremble in anticipation against his own, eyes glancing down, impatient. The way he leans in, as if he sought a kiss, but his mouth hangs open as his breath doesn't escape his mouth.  
The smallest, wettest moan Joseph lets out as Sebastian's fingertips climb the faded ladder of his ribs is enough to make all questions running through his mind melt. He lets his palm cup the hill of his pectoral, as Joseph had done, if nonchalantly and pretending he didn't do it on purpose, to him. He revels for a few seconds in the feeling of Joseph's heartbeat, loud and heavy with excitation, in the cradle of his palm, before finding the shy nub of Joseph's nipple and enclosing it in the hollow between his thumb and index finger, tugging gently.  
Sebastian feels Joseph's mouth fall open against his, a choked moan that only he could have ever heard washing over his lips. Sebastian tentatively presses a kiss to the corner of Joseph's mouth and finds him busy kissing him again.

Sebastian toys with Joseph's newfound pleasure as he hears him gasp between two kisses. His hands wander the plains of Joseph's chest, thorax, down to his loins, watch between two moans drank at the pouring cup of Joseph's lips the way Joseph's nipples poke more and more confidently under the lazy rubs of his thumbs.

"Seb," Joseph gasps, " _Seb—_ "

Joseph's face buries itself in the crook of Sebastian's neck and Sebastian sees his hands firmly grabbed and pushed to the sides of his face, pressed against the pillow. As he feels the warmth of Joseph's erratic breathing against his collarbone, he playfully presses a thigh between Joseph's. He is left to appreciate the bulge tenting the expensive fabric of Joseph's pleated pants.

"Oh _fuck—_ " he can hear Joseph gasp against his throat, and as he retrieves his hands to find support, Sebastian can use his newly-freed own to adoringly cup Joseph's boner into his welcoming palms.

He watches Joseph push himself out of the nest of the crook of his neck and, eyes shut close, mouth agape, shiver in pleasure under Sebastian's touch.  
Sebastian barely dares a chuckle. Eyes fixated, mesmerized, pupils wide like a deep dark lake, onto Joseph's face, they then flee to his hips swirling subtly, finding their delight in Sebastian's hand, before jumping back to his face again.  
Sebastian doesn't dare a chuckle. He barely allows himself to breathe and forgets to even notice his own pleasure as it builds in the pool of his stomach, his own boner substantial between their bodies.  
He dares a few kisses to Joseph's open lips before a hand grabs his shoulder, nails involuntarily digging in.

"Sebastian, Seb, wait —" Joseph manages as he gently bats Sebastian's taunting hand way, "Let me do this, _please_ , let me."

Sebastian doesn't question it. He obediently puts his hands away, retrieving them to the back of Joseph's thighs.  
Joseph nibbles as his lips some more, mouth so wet, supple, teeth hungry but not ravenous, before gently nudging his legs apart and settling between them.  
Sebastian raises an eyebrow as Joseph's lips leave his — does he want to do it like the last time? This seems weird…

But Joseph doesn't want to do it like the last time. He lays on his chest as he leans into Sebastian's, teeth finding his collarbone first.

"Do you mind love bites?" he asks, voice muffled against Sebastian's warm skin, eyes still shy as he glances up.  
"I don't," Sebastian answers in a choked breath, and Joseph's mouth opens, uncovering his teeth, as he takes the lightest of bites.

Sebastian's breath hitches in his throat. He feels a burning, insatiable bliss kindling the deep-seated desire pervading his guts as Joseph's teeth and tongue work their edacious harmony against his the skin of his neck.

Joseph leans away from his bite with a wet little sound and his lips and hands are over Sebastian's chest again, unfastening the last buttons that didn't get their designated attention.  
His open mouth, his tongue, his teeth graze the tan skin as if he wanted to dive in. His breath taunts in the path it trails on its way down Sebastian's thorax; his hands run the hills and plains of the pectorals, ribs, abdominal muscles with an adoration close to reverence. As his fingertips trace the chest, they find the nipples, almost bashfully so, and the mouth follows suit.  
Sebastian lets out a small chuckle under the tickling of Joseph's breath, running a delighted hand in his black locks as Joseph's dark brown eyes look up for approval. Sebastian gives it in a smile.

Joseph's lips travel down, almost worshipping with the way he dares to touch and closes his eyes as for a prayer.

Sebastian feels his skin ignite under the kisses, the smallest patch of saliva, the felicitous fingertips.  
Joseph bows on Sebastian's hips, his full, graceful lips grazing over the thick hair that disappears under the waistband of Sebastian's underwear. They find the scar that, like a curved arrow, points to the obvious bulge grazing the underside of Joseph's throat.  
Sebastian loses his breath for a second, a sharp inhale wrenching his lungs as he feels the caress of Joseph's mouth over his scar. He pushes himself on an elbow only to see Joseph, eyes closed in the veneration of a profane man, hands hesitating over Sebastian's fly.  
Sebastian dares loving fingers through Joseph's hair. He runs a long caress over Joseph's head, then down to his nape, cheeks, chin, gently pulling to make him look up.  
Joseph offers an almost distracted gaze from over the frame of his glasses, then a low, longing blink. He kisses the thumb Sebastian's curled under his chin and slowly, almost agonizingly slow, pulls down the zipper of Sebastian's pants.

Watching his own erection, still trapped under the fabric of his underwear, so close to his partner's mouth makes Sebastian's guts tighten with an embarrassment so heavily tinted with this raw, ungraceful desire that he barely manages to distinguish them from one another. His thoughts start running mad with a never-ending chant of euphoric ache.  
Joseph's head drops to Sebastian's thighs and he starts rubbing his smooth cheek against the clothed hill of Sebastian's hardening cock, eyes closed, brows furrowed.  
Sebastian can do nothing, paralyzed by want, and excitement, and the fear of break through the thin glass of this perfect moment, but watch. Joseph's fingers grip at the fabric of his underwear, the knuckles turning white, but do not dare to pull it off.  
Joseph's head shifts and he runs his temple, his nose, his mouth with parted, glistening lips over Sebastian's bulge, looking desperate for more but holding himself back, putting restraints on his own desire — and Sebastian can see Joseph's lower body swift and shift, legs crossing and uncrossing, trying with no success to calm his own erection.

"Joseph," Sebastian calls him, voice hoarse with entrenched pleasure, running fingers through Joseph's ruffled hair, " _Joseph—_ "

Sebastian's fingers close in a fist in the midst of Joseph's locks and he tugs lightly. Joseph's head tilts back and the choked little moan that escapes his lips, as the delighting feeling of his hair being pulled gently washes over him, sending a tingling shiver up his spine to ignite his cheeks, makes Sebastian's underwear feel even tighter.

"Could you come sit on the edge of the bed?" Joseph asks. His glasses are askew and clouded and his labored breathing makes his naked chest heave deeply as the red of the blush on his cheeks cascades onto his thorax. " _Please—_ I want to kneel between your thighs and suck you off."

Sebastian has to blink twice before fully comprehending Joseph's words. As his plea dawns onto him, his mouth falls open and he stares, like a goddamn idiot, at Joseph's dark brown eyes.  
Thrill and want mix in his blood and sing to his ears, to his temples, where his heartbeat loses itself in the indulgence of fantasies, to his ribs, against which it pounds erratically, as if it were a prisoner banging against the bars, to the brim of his lips where the mixture threatens to spill, mouth kindled with hunger.  
Cupping Joseph's chin between his thumb and index finger, Sebastian brings Joseph's lips to appease his own. Leaning in at the same time, he meets Joseph just where he had left the enticing rubbing of his cheeks against his now almost painful boner.  
As they part, saliva makes their red lips glisten, slick and deliciously wet. Sebastian's thumb traces the curve of Joseph's mouth, appreciating the depth of the cupid's bow, the heart-shape of the top lip, the litheness of the bottom one.  
Sebastian barely manages to think ' _oh god, and to say these will be around my cock in a few seconds_ —' that he catches himself, blushing and breathless, in Joseph's deep dark eyes — and he promptly moves himself to the edge of the bed to distract himself from this embarrassing vision.

 

          Sebastian spreads his thighs wide enough for Joseph to kneel between them, eyes wandering from his open fly, behind which his still-clothed cock reacts to Joseph's adoring gaze upon it, to Joseph, just Joseph, and his eyes shining with excitement and determination, his hands gripping the fabric of Sebastian's pants at the thighs as he waits for permission. His own erection he barely notices, eyes on Sebastian, just Sebastian, only Sebastian.  
Joseph's eyes, dark with a craving that Sebastian knows he would feed with his own guts if he needed to and these streaks of gold under the light, euphoric in their impatience, watch Sebastian settle on a hand, slightly leaning back. His head tilts on the side as a sign of approval.  
Sebastian watches this delighted smile toy with the corner of Joseph's mouth and is left to observe Joseph pull his pants down, just a bit, before hooking fingers at the waistband of his underwear and, without further ado, letting Sebastian's cock free of its prison of cloth.  
Sebastian blurts out a confusing apology as his boner hits the frame of Joseph's glasses. Joseph barely flinches, gives a short smile of acknowledgment and, pushing his glasses back on his nose, he dives to Sebastian's groin.

Sebastian winces at he feels Joseph's lips against his crotch. As he dares a glance down, he watches Joseph wrap careful fingers around the length of his cock.

A first, long, slow, almost agonizingly tempting stroke makes him harder than he was before, as if that was remotely possible.  
Joseph's hand is thorough, careful, delightfully meticulous as it finds a pace — Sebastian already feels pleasure climb up his legs, pool on his lap, warm the pit of his abdomen, and fucking hell, Joseph hasn't even started.  
Just as he thinks that, as he if had read his thoughts, Joseph's lips find the base of his cock.

Sebastian watches Joseph mouthing, nose buried against his crotch, hands gripping at the fabric of his pants with poorly-contained excitation, at the underside of his length. His eyes shut close in concentration and, with the way he feels his lips purse against his balls, the slightly wet sound that reaches his ears, Sebastian is pretty sure it was a kiss (not that he could really see, with his cock in the way).  
Joseph's mouth falls open. Pink peeks between his lips and his tongue settles flat against Sebastian's shaft, licking up in a nimble motion, making Sebastian twitch. Finding the tip of his cock, already flushed pink, Joseph's tongue curls lovingly around the head. He laps at the aperture, spit mixing with pre-cum, worries the frenulum with purses of his lips — and as Sebastian feels the combination of saliva and his own fluids drip down the length of his cock, Joseph's mouth falls wide open. After nestling the pink head against the cushion of his tongue and cradling with both nonchalance and devotion Sebastian's scrotum into his palm, Joseph's heads bobs down the length of Sebastian's shaft.  
Sebastian has to use both of his hands as support behind his back to prevent him from falling gracelessly on his back.

" _Joseph—_ " he gasps, "oh god, Joe, fuck—"

Joseph's mouth is too noisy for their collective good. The wet, slick noises that accompany the trails of Joseph's glistening lips around Sebastian's cock have him grasping at the sheet under him for dear fucking life. The pleasure that had pooled on his lap drips and dribbles, warmth climbs up and down the length of his cock with each passing of Joseph's tongue.

Joseph keeps his enthusiastic rhythm, reveling in the way Sebastian lets out a breathy moan every time his lips hit the base of Sebastian's cock and said cock the back of his throat.  
_God, he's good. He's good._  
Pleasure sings in his bloodstream, making his crotch, his loin, his chest warm with a delight like no other. His moans hoarsen as his breath escape him, the coming of his release stealing his voice as it builds between his thighs.  
Sebastian could get off to how diligent Joseph is, so focused, so through as ever, everything animating him in this very moment being nothing but Sebastian's pleasure — and he almost does, fucking hell, he almost does. He basks in how _messy_ the whole thing is. How spit and pre-cum and more spit escape Joseph's lips every time he slightly leans back to lap enthusiastically at Sebastian's cockhead, how Joseph's lips are stretched around his dick, his cheeks hollowed, his eyes closed, almost reverent — how Joseph wants him. Joseph just wants him.  
The thought sends a shiver of pleasure like a lightning bolt up Sebastian's spine and Joseph feels him tremble in his mouth. Sebastian catches his dark brown eyes over him, adoring, playful, and if he wasn't this fucking close already, Joseph brings back one of his hands to the slick length of his cock.  
And with the first stroke, Sebastian knows he's a goner.

"Joseph," he manages to breath out as Joseph's hand finds its own part of the waltz alongside Joseph's lips, " _Joseph—_ "

Joseph hums with pleasure.  
Sebastian feels it.  
Joseph's head does one last swift bob down his cock. His hand barely needs to dance its part, giving a few nimble strokes of its own. As his throat and mouth tighten ever-so-slightly around Sebastian's dick, he trips gracelessly over his edge and sends himself coming into Joseph's mouth.

"Oh fuck— oh fuck, _Joseph—_!"

Fingers digging into the sheet, mouth fallen open as he feels his heartbeat as hard at this temples as between Joseph's lips, Sebastian loses what he had retrieved of breath into Joseph's mouth. His legs twitch as he feels Joseph's throat tighten around him. Each of the short, warm clenches seems to be trying to get more of him — more, more than more, and Sebastian loses himself trying to give, for Joseph deserves it.  
He lets out a sound of pleasure he had tried to contain that Joseph welcomes with a heart as open as his mouth — and with that, Sebastian feels conscious again. As he sees and feels the way Joseph's lips and throat welcome him and tighten around him as he slowly leans back on his heels, the thick gulping noises between the blissful hums and the hand raised under his chin dripping with fluids, Sebastian realizes Joseph is swallowing. He is drinking him up, not letting anything go to waste, welcoming Sebastian's release like a libation.

Joseph leans back some more. His lips leave the slick, obscenely wet skin of Sebastian's cock with a salacious 'pop' that, if he hadn't just cum, would have made Sebastian jizz on the spot.  
Joseph licks up Sebastian's shaft with the blissful devotion that lingers once hunger is satisfied. As Sebastian retrieves an even breathing, they share a loving, tender gaze. Sebastian's hand comes to ruffle Joseph's hair, putting back in order some wild locks, and to pet Joseph's slightly wet cheek.

"How are you feeling?" Joseph asks, low and hoarse. Sebastian can hear in the playful hints in his voice that he hasn't forgotten about his famous 'y _ou rubbed the fuck out of my dick so goddamn hard my legs have gone totally numb_ ' tirade.  
"I mean," Sebastian replies, as playful, "I can feel my legs from the knee down… not sure about my thighs, though."

Joseph lets out a tinkling laugh as he allows himself to lick Sebastian's cock clean one more time, _'for real this time_ ' his haste seems to say. A glance at Sebastian's face makes him find his golden eyes over him, watching his deliberately.

"Do you think it's gross?" Joseph asks, nonetheless licking his lips.

Sebastian closes his eyes as he tries to find a less blunt way to say ' _I don't, it is actually extremely hot, and if you had even just told me this is something you are into, I would probably have come on the spot_ ', but he doesn't need to: Joseph reads it in his silence and a frisky smile comes to toy with the corner of his lips.

"Does sucking men off usually make you this hard?" Sebastian asks as he reopens his eyes, nonchalantly pointing at the boner Joseph had been trying to appease with the palm of his hand during their conversation  
"Even if I did," Joseph begins, his brown eyes warm with love and deep with this bottomless hunger Sebastian barely got a taste of, "I don't remember having been this hard pleasing someone, but I may be biased."

Sebastian's heart jumps in his chest, grazes his lips and almost falls into his lap for Joseph to see. Unable to speak, he gestures at Joseph to come to get himself a kiss — and he does, and he is not afraid to share a taste of Sebastian through his parted lips, allowing him to find his own warmth in Joseph's mouth.  
_It's hot._  
He doesn't manage to formulate another thought.

"Hey," he whispers against Joseph's lips, licking off his mouth what Joseph had licked off him, "would you let me suck you off too?"  
"Seb, you don't have too," Joseph replies, voice barely an echo into Sebastian's mouth.  
"It'd be my absolute pleasure."

Sebastian's resolute voice, and the hints of ardor and eagerness mingling with his words, has Joseph struggle to breathe and his pants suddenly tighten.

"Do… Do you want to switch places, or…"  
"I have another idea," Sebastian says. A smile paints his face a lovely blush color, and with that, he props himself onto an elbow, almost laying on the mattress. He gently pulls Joseph by the hand as he crawls back to the pillows.

 

          Sebastian settles on his back, lifted generously by the cushions under his shoulder blades, and entices Joseph to come closer. Gently rolling him on his side next to him, Sebastian helps Joseph discard his pants. He cradles the bulge tenting the heavy fabric with a playful hand as he pulls the zipper down.

"Oh— okay, okay," Joseph gasps as Sebastian toys with the waistband of his underwear, feeling the way his boner seeks its release in the palm of Sebastian's hand.

Sebastian steals a few teasing pecks from Joseph's lips as he pulls Joseph's briefs down. Pushing the fabric down his thighs, Sebastian lets himself appreciate the subtle muscle definition his palms find as they slide down in an ample caress. As he peeks down in the midst of another kiss, he watches the way Joseph's cock confidently surges forward.  
Offering a last brush of his lips to Joseph's, he urges him to his side by tugging gently at the collar of his shirt and repositions himself against his stack of pillows.

"How do you plan on…" Joseph begins, squinting as he runs his eyes over their position.

Sebastian offers a wide smile. Poorly suppressing a shiver of excitation, he guides Joseph to straddle his chest, knees on each side of his ribcage.  
He watches Joseph's eyes grow wide, pupils expanding a deep hungry black, the light reflecting in the honey hints of his irises.  
Sebastian's lips quirk in a delighted smile as he sees Joseph's cheeks get redder as he understands. He lets his hand climb Joseph's thighs, feeling how they delectably twitch under his fingertips, and allows one to cup the small of Joseph's back.

"Are… Are you sure?" Joseph asks as his hands find the pillows for support.

His sudden shyness, right after having swallowed Sebastian's load as if it was warm milk, makes Sebastian's cheeks hot with adoration.

"I'm sure," he answers. "It's been a while, but I think I can keep up."

And as to illustrate his words, his lips part and the pink tip of his taunting tongue darts out, inviting Joseph in.  
Sebastian feels Joseph's hands grip at the pillowcases. He lets out a randy groan from his bluntness, but Sebastian watches him hesitate some more, nonetheless pushing himself up on his knees.

"Come on," Sebastian encourages him, voice soft in the midst of the heat growing inside and between them. "It'll be fine."  
"If you need me to pull out," Joseph insists, "just… tap my thigh, or push me off, whatever's easier at the moment."

Sebastian smiles as he gives a solemn nod, and lick his lips before they part. Joseph, a hand holding onto the headboard for support, guides with the other his cock to Sebastian's chin. Gently, he pushes himself into his partner's mouth. He watches with a hidden pleasure the way Sebastian looks, unhesitant, eyes closed in bliss as he welcomes Joseph's shaft with the quirk of a smile that stretches around it.  
As Sebastian's lips reach the base of his cock, nose pressed to the heated skin of his groin, Joseph lets out a shaky exhale. He feels Sebastian's mouth and tongue work almost thoughtlessly, wandering the underside, and head, and tip of his dick.  
Joseph slowly pulls his hips back, watching, mesmerized through his heavy lashes, the way Sebastian's saliva makes him so slick and wet as his cock slips out of his warm mouth. He unmindfully runs a finger over Sebastian's glistening lips, finding on his face when he focuses again a tender, almost gut-wrenching look from honeyed his irises. He slowly thrusts into Sebastian's mouth again and, as warm hands rub the hollow of his back in a reassurance and an invitation, finds a solid hold onto the pillows and the headstand before picking himself a comfortable pace.

Joseph stopped being shy and one of his hands finds a hold into Sebastian's hair as he thrusts into his mouth. He feels around his cock the thrilled hums Sebastian doesn't manage to vocalize, catches out of the corner of his eye the way Sebastian spreads his thighs wider as his own dick twitches and pulses — and Joseph, oh, he feels himself grow harder, his loins filling with warmth as he sees and hears and feels Sebastian's own pleasure.

Joseph cup Sebastian's cheek in one hand, reveling in the way his hands run up and down his back They push him closer, wash up on the shingles his flanks over and over in waves of adoration. He pulls himself out of Sebastian's warm mouth and Sebastian's tongue curls around the oozing tip, licking, gleeful, pre-cum off the head and his own lips. As Joseph thrusts himself back where Sebastian had invited, he feels the way Sebastian pulls him closer He grabs his thighs, the small of his back, his ass, loops arms around his waist to swallow him whole. In a bout of playfulness, Sebastian's thumb and index finger tweak one of Joseph's nipples, drawing from his mouth a sharp, shocked yet delighted moan as he stumbles forward.

Joseph struggles to keep his rhythm as his breath quickens, shortens, his fingers curling into the fabric of the pillowcase. Sebastian encourages each of his thrusts with adoring hands, muffled moans around his cock, and from time to time a sharply shifts his legs as he feels himself growing hard again.

" _Seb_ ," Joseph manages to say, panting breathlessly as his knuckles turn white with his grip on the pillows, "Seb, oh, _oh—_ "

He pushes himself a little deeper into Sebastian's mouth, promptly pulling out then in again, burying the older man's nose in the trail of thin black hair running down below his navel.  
Joseph's mouth falls agape, breathing growing erratic as he feels pleasure building in his loins, in his groin, Sebastian's mouth around him engulfing, pulling him to the edge, merciless in the sweetest of ways. The uncontrollable shaking of his legs as his balance loses its pieces alongside his self-control makes Sebastian's heart sing — one of his hands comes to cup the back of his thigh in an unspoken reassurance : ' _I've got you_ '.

" _Sebastian—_ oh, fuck, Seba—"

The way Sebastian smiles around him, the way his tongue hungrily laps at the sensitive underside and head of his cock, sliding in the warm, wet tip when he pulls away makes Joseph desperately look for solid support on the pillows and the headstand.  
His hips start faltering, his rhythm dissolving into Sebastian's mouth. He pants, his own heartbeat filling his mind with its din as he feels it pulsing at the brim of his lips. He moans, and Sebastian welcomes to his ears the enchanting sound of his voice.

"I'll— _aah_ , I'll pull out before I come," Joseph miraculously manages through the heavy fog of his own pleasure, "I don't want to choke on that."

Sebastian makes a disapproving noise that Joseph feels reverberating from his cock to the depths of his guts. His hands supporting the small of Joseph's back, Sebastian straightens his back, pushing on his elbows until he finds a relatively vertical position.  
He helps Joseph to find the strength to bring his hips further up and, with a low moan around his cock, hands gripping a little harder, Sebastian encourages Joseph's hips.  
Joseph takes the hint.  
As Sebastian almost carries him in his arms, tongue heavenly warm and wet around his cock, one of Joseph's hand buries itself into his brown, messy locks. The other finding support on the martyrized pillows, and he lets all of what was left of his self-control crumble down.

He loses himself into Sebastian's mouth, his release pulling with it over the edge all that was left of uncertainty, of doubt, of hesitation, of the walls he had built around the bashful fantasies he wanted to shield from his colleague's eyes and promised to bury with him. Sebastian welcomes Joseph's hoarse moan dripping with pure, unfiltered pleasure as a libation to his profane lips along with the rest of what he offers him.  
Sebastian peeks with bold, resolute yet awed eyes at Joseph bowing over him. A long shiver of bliss makes him lose his balance and almost hit his head on the headstand.

 

          When Joseph manages to peer from between his lashes, Sebastian's mouth, lips, and tongue are working almost unmindfully around Joseph's softening cock, sometimes accompanied by a thick gulping sound.  
Joseph glances down. He sees the excess of his own cum oozing out of Sebastian's mouth. It glistens on his lips as he struggles to, or doesn't even bother to swallow.  
It drips down his chin, down his throat and onto his chest, staining the dark hair between his generously open shirttails as it trickles even further south, flowing in thin ropes over his thorax and stomach.  
Joseph slowly pulls out. Mesmerized by the way Sebastian's chest rises and falls, how the pearly trails weave and snake between his breasts, he sits over Sebastian's hips.

Sebastian's catches Joseph's fascinated gaze on his chest and playfully makes his pectoral muscles bounce as he pulls his shirttails wider apart.

"How do you like this, Joe?" he teases, enjoying the mix of offense and poorly contained amusement on Joseph's face.  
"It's hot, okay?" he barks, a laugh cracking through his voice, making Sebastian chuckle at his turn. "It's hot!"

 

          Sebastian lays, shirttails generously open, a leg thoughtless bent, eyes half-lidded, as Joseph picks up the box of tissues.  
Gently, hands careful, he wipes the mess off Sebastian's skin. He rubs the corners of his mouth, his chin where stubble had caught the fluids, his throat where it had dribbled in thin, pearly trails, his chest where Sebastian playfully squishes his pectoral muscles together, drawing from Joseph a scolding glance with a very, _very_ poorly hidden excitation.  
Sebastian laughs with an open heart and a chest full of love. Joseph gives him a reprimanding flick between the eyebrows.

Switching from a tissue to another, Joseph gets a dollop of cum onto a finger. As he grabs the tissue to clean it, Sebastian's hand finds his wrist.  
Joseph watches him bring the finger to his lips, the tip of his tongue graze over the wetness, before pressing it against the comfortable cushion of his tongue and slipping it into his mouth until his lips find Joseph's knuckle.  
Joseph who does nothing but watch, eyes wide, mouth agape, awestruck and stripped of the entirety of his breath.

"Sorry," Sebastian whispers, voice low in what sounds like a dawn of shame, as he slips the wet, slick finger out of his mouth, "is this too much?"  
"No," Joseph manages to make his mouth form, "no. It's great. It's so great."

Sebastian opens his arms to invite Joseph against his chest. As he lets himself fall between Sebastian's parted lips, Joseph can taste himself against his tongue. He finds a cradle in Sebastian's arms and, as a low chuckle escapes his lips and brushes over Sebastian's, Joseph says :

"What are we going to do? We went in this evening wanting to go all the way and we've already exhausted ourselves."  
"Hey," Sebastian laughs softly, feeling the purses of Joseph's lips against the corner of his mouth as he speaks, "I'm ready for more whenever you are."

Joseph subtly leans back and Sebastian catches in his gaze this excitation, this delighted thrill in his irises as a carnal hunger makes his fingers grip the collar of Sebastian's shirt. This fervor is swept by something more tender as Joseph leans in for another kiss.

"Let's take a break," he says, cupping Sebastian's face in his warm palms, "Let's do nothing but kiss for fifteen minutes until we can get it up again."

Sebastian doesn't have the time to respond that Joseph presses his lips to his, and he lets out a tender chuckle.  
Sebastian is rolled on his side as Joseph pulls him, falling ungracefully on his back. In their newfound embrace, the heaving of their chests slows down as the fluttering lovebirds in the cages of their ribs kiss from beyond the flesh.  
Joseph lets out a long sigh as Sebastian cradles him in his arms and soon their even breathing lulls the caprices of their heartbeats back to a soft, barely audible pulse.  
The sheets ruffling under their weight and the noise of skin against skin fills the growing silence with the fragrance of Joseph's soap and Cologne.

 

          The two men found their eagerness again, the sound of silence bending under the weight of their moans.  
How long they stayed in silence, mouths delicate and chaste over the other's body, doesn't really matter now. Sebastian's hand finds the curve of Joseph's cock again, nonchalant in its touch, enjoying against his tongue the taste of Joseph's elated, but muffled, gasps.

Sebastian revels in the way Joseph's hands push his already open shirt off his shoulders, lips parted wide as they welcome the unhurried comings of his tongue. Joseph's fingers, trembling with an excitation poorly contained as his breathing already quickens in anticipation, let Sebastian free of the pants that still hung around his thighs.  
Hands working to discard Joseph of his own shirt, Sebastian gently pulls him into an embrace. He sits back on his heels as he makes the fabric slip off Joseph's shoulders.

"Hold on," Joseph whispers against Sebastian's lips as he slowly eases him down again, "hold on."

He rolls out of the bed and trots to the bathroom.  
Sebastian stays on the mattress, an eyebrow quirked in incomprehension.  
Joseph trots back in with a towel under his arm. As Sebastian's eyebrow rises higher, Joseph throws his catch onto the bed.

"To save our sheets from lube stains. I bought it silicone-based and if it touches the fabric, it's going to ruin it." He jumps onto the bed, throwing himself against Sebastian's mouth for a kiss. "And we wouldn't want that, would we?"

Sebastian laughs and Joseph nibbles onto his voice as he pulls him down, arms looped around his neck.

"Ah, wait," Sebastian suddenly jolts up, "do you want to keep the lights on?"  
"I want to be able to see you," Joseph replies, impatience frozen under the heavy layer of desire.  
"Joe," Sebastian chuckles lovingly, "that doesn't answer my question."

And with that, Sebastian jumps out of the bed and begins long minutes of switching off and on every single light of the room. ' _Try with just the main one_ ', ' _no, actually turn it off, turn the desktop one on instead_ ', ' _wait try the bedside one_ ', ' _no the other bedside one_ ', until Joseph eventually settles on the desktop and two bedsides lamps, the main one looking over them turned off. Sebastian finally jumps back onto the bed.

"God, that was so demanding," Joseph mumbles, voice low with embarrassment.  
"Anything for you, your Majesty," Sebastian chuckles as he crawls to him.  
"Ugh, oh please, don't call me that, this could become a kink," Joseph groans. He sounds only half-joking.

Sebastian stops, looks at him with big brown eyes. A smirk flashes at the corner of his lips and he opens his mouth to repeat it.

" _Don't_ ," Joseph cuts him off with a hand over his mouth. "Don't say it. Get the lube."

Sebastian's heart skips a delighted beat. He noticed the way Joseph's voice trembled on his last order, his confidence bending over the weight of his desire.

"Aw," Sebastian laughs, voice low, voice warm, blinking lovingly as he finds a kiss on Joseph's lips, "not yet."

Joseph quirks an eyebrow and his face immediately softens as Sebastian's hands come cradling his face. His lips drop, offering small, chaste purses, to his chin, then to his jaw, traveling lower at the pace of a man discovering his very own heaven.  
Joseph's chest ignites. His cheeks feel the heat climbing up his throat and to the brim of his lips as they turn red, yet he tries to play it nonchalant:

"You were the one with your hand back on my dick in no time, and now you're just going to kiss me?"

 _'Just'_ , he said, and he immediately regrets it, the words stolen right from the tip of his tongue as Sebastian's lips find the hollow of his jaw, the length of his neck.  
Sebastian's cup his cheeks as his tongue and his teeth graze the muscle of his throat, pressing the lightest of bites into the sensitive skin. Joseph's mouth falls open in breathless, voiceless moans. He presses his face to the cradles of Sebastian's palms, lips seeking skin to kiss in thank.

"Are you okay with hickeys?" Sebastian asks, and his voice, warm and hushed, dripping with a desire he tries to contain, brushes over Joseph's flesh in a heavenly caress.

Joseph's mind yells _'yes_!' but his lips don't manage a word, as if Sebastian's kisses had overwhelmed him mute. Sebastian waits anxiously for an approval, glance suddenly shy, before Joseph retrieves enough self-control to achieve a nod.  
He feels the curl of Sebastian's lips in a smile in the crook of his neck and lets out a long, shaky exhale as he tries to keep his composure. Sebastian's teeth nibble at his skin, his tongue wanders his neck, and Joseph feels himself melt in his embrace.

Sebastian leaves hickeys like red flower buds on Joseph's pale skin as his head trails down. His lips graze over the sharp hills of his collarbones, follow the path to his diaphragm with something akin to reverence that has Joseph cover his face with one of his arms, bashfulness, astonishment and awe pooling in his chest for Sebastian's mouth to brush over.  
Sebastian's hands leave Joseph's cheeks to cradle the sides of his neck, graze over his shoulders, cup his flanks, feel his heartbeat growing louder to the sound of his undying, desire-intoxicated thoughts.  
Sebastian's mouth carries its long way down. It brushes over the plains of Joseph's toned stomach, presses kisses on its path, finds the happy trail snaking down from Joseph's navel, follows it enthusiastically.  
Joseph pushes himself on his elbows when Sebastian's lips reach his crotch. He watches them trail down the inside of his thigh, his knee, hands caressing and feeling the milky skin where the mouth had already wandered.  
As Sebastian's lip reach Joseph's ankle, he offers a delighted glance at his partner, who is staring at him with glasses askew and lips parted in astonishment. Sebastian revels in the way Joseph's breathing hitches and hesitates, how he shuts his eyes as Sebastian caresses the inside of his thighs and finally lets himself fall back against his pillows.

"Do you think I can reach the lube from here?" Sebastian asks, and immediately gracelessly flops on his stomach and waves his arm around. Joseph chokes on air in a fit of laughter.

 

          Joseph watches Sebastian coat his index and middle finger with a generous amount of lubricant through heavy-lidded eyes. Sebastian watches Joseph watch him, sees how his chest rises and falls heavily, almost unsteadily, how his mouth quirks as he bites the inside of his cheek.  
Sebastian pretends to distractedly watch how the golden light reflects in the gel dripping down how fingers as he steals a glance in Joseph's direction, watches how an involuntary needy whine escapes his lips and how he spreads his legs wider.  
It is obscene, blunt, salacious.  
And by god, does it make Sebastian incredibly hard.

" _Seb_ ," Joseph rasps, voice heavy and clouded with desire, his eyes shining with an almost ravenous longing, "Seb, please."

Sebastian brings his hand to Joseph's skin, smoothing the warmth under his fingertips. As he watches the way Joseph's fist curls into the sheet, he lets his middle finger slip in.  
It is astonishingly easy and Sebastian feels a knot of lust tie itself in his guts and throat at the mere thought of how much Joseph could have wanted this waltzes into his mind.

A first phalange, a second, and his knuckle finds itself pressed against Joseph's ass. Sebastian forces his breathing even, eyes focused on Joseph's face, just his face, only his face, watching how his mouth falls open, how his tongue peeks from between his lips, how his lashes flutter. Slowly drawing his finger back, then pushing it back in, almost nonchalant. Trying as hard as he can not to let the fact that he is _this close_ to jumping Joseph without any further ado show, Sebastian wallows in feeling the way Joseph moves around him — tight, then almost loose, tight again, deliciously warm, welcoming his finger deeper, _deeper_.

" _Oh—_ oh, Seb…"

Sebastian curls his finger, a come-hither at his fingertips, and, oh, Joseph does; he bucks, almost desperately, against Sebastian's hand. His mouth falls open with a hoarse cry as his hand grasps the sheets beneath him.

" _Seb—_ oh god, Seb, again, please—"

And Sebastian does, and Joseph's voice melts in a whine as he jerks against Sebastian's hand. He longs, he longs for more, and the evenness of his breathing crumbles as Sebastian carefully draws his finger back to thrust back in with another.  
Joseph pants, and moans, and whines as he feels the way Sebastian's fingers search within him, delight themselves in his warmth, curl, twist, bend, find within him just the right spot —

"You're gorgeous," Sebastian blurts out, his eyes so wide, so tender, sweet as honey in color and in emotion.

Joseph pushes himself on his elbows, reaches for Sebastian with a desperate hand.  
Sebastian comes to him, fingers still inside of him, still deflecting themselves of the noises they draw from his lips, still curling and bending and twisting to bring pleasure at the brim of his lips, and there, as Joseph pulls him into a kiss, Sebastian can taste it.

Joseph kisses him with his lips parted, eyes shut, arms looped around his neck as he clings onto him for support. He nibbles, he bites, he feeds Sebastian with more little gasps, a raspy voice, an erratic heartbeat tasted right against his tongue — Sebastian is mesmerized. He drinks Joseph's pleasure at the cup of his agape mouth as it fills his own. Joseph guides his free hand to the swell of his erection, lets his palm find the drops of pre-cum weaving down the length of his cock, and as Sebastian breaks the kiss to try to find the bottle of lube to prepare a third finger, Joseph pulls him into another kiss.  
Breathless, voiceless, pleasure and eagerness tasted against his teeth as he nips at Sebastian's lips, Joseph begs:

"Fuck me, _please_ , fuck me, oh, _Seb—_ "

Sebastian steals his plea from the fountain of his lips and lets it cascade onto him to bring to the verge of flooding the river of his own passion. Joseph's voice makes him feel so warm, so raw, willing and eager as if he had been made for this.  
He carefully draws his fingers out, watching the way Joseph's legs tremble and twitch, and nudges them apart to sit between them.

"Do you want a pillow under your hips?" Sebastian asks, almost embarrassed by the way his voice quakes. "Or would you rather be on your stomach?"  
"I want to be able to kiss you," Joseph's raspy voice answers him, dark brown eyes laid heavy and longing on his face. "And I'd appreciate the pillow."

Sebastian accommodates Joseph's request swiftly, settling the pillow under the small of his back and the towel. Joseph lets out a surprised gasp as he moves a bit too fast and blurts out:

"Oh shit—! I almost did a backward roll."

Sebastian contains an unrestrictable fit of laughter at Joseph's out of place swearing and helps him lay more comfortably.  
He settles between Joseph's legs, cupping the back of one of his thighs thoughtlessly. He seeks approval in Joseph's eyes, finds a gut-wrenching and almost delirious fervor, a longing like a neverending plea and, as he looks down, a single word on Joseph's lips:

" _Please_."

Sebastian doesn't need more.

 

          Joseph watches him, eyes glistening in the golden light through his heavy lashes, as he wastes little time coating his cock in a generous amount of lube. He hears the way Joseph's breath hitches in his throat as he takes a hold of his cock and presses the head against his ass, almost awaiting another invitation.  
Joseph gives one in the way his eyes close slowly, exhaling deeply, mouth agape and quirked in a smile.  
Sebastian lets himself thrust in slowly, eyes laid on the mesmerizing spectacle of Joseph taking him in. He stops as the head of his cock finishes sliding in, observing the way Joseph tightens and loosens around him, his breathing heavy and trembling as he tries to keep it even.  
Joseph encourages him with a muffled, breathless _'please'_ and a hand on his thigh. His fingers curl lightly and his nails graze over the flesh. Sebastian offers a nod and, bowing over Joseph with a hand on his side as support, pushes his cock all the way into the welcoming warmth of Joseph's ass until their hips meet.  
Sebastian hears a low, weak moan whom he doesn't know belongs to, then Joseph's voice:

" _Fuck—_ god, you're thick…"

His hands find Joseph's hips and he feels Joseph's nails bite at the skin of his thighs.  
A shaky, soundless exhale escapes him as pleasure pools between his legs. Joseph's soap and sweat and Cologne and _the way he tightens around him as he nudges him closer and how his hips swirl gracefully as he craves for more_ mixing all around Sebastian, inside of Sebastian, above and beneath and below, thrilling, intoxicating, exhilarating.  
Sebastian feels as if he's going crazy and he didn't even start moving yet.

"I'm ready," Joseph voice croaks in the mist of their ragged breathing, "Sebastian, _please_."

Sebastian looks up.  
His breath hitches in his throat with such force he feels as if his lungs had jumped to his lips and his jaw almost drops.  
Unable to do anything but stare, he observes how gorgeous Joseph looks; how one of his hands twists in the sheets, grabbing a fistful of the fabric, how the other runs in his dark, ruffled hair, how his chest rises and falls with his heavy breathing, colored by the red that paints his cheeks, cascades down his throat and onto his torso, how his legs are spread in this delightfully almost obscene way, how his hard cock is curved against his lower stomach — and Sebastian suddenly realizes he had stopped breathing, stunned by how beautiful the man under him is.  
Joseph's eyes flutter open. Sebastian watches him stare at him, regaled, adoring, ready. His hand unburies itself from the mess of sheets and comes touching Sebastian's skin before settling itself not really on his thigh and not really on his ass either.  
Sebastian leans into Joseph's chest. His lips find a small moan at the gate of Joseph's mouth and enough encouragement in Joseph's nails suddenly digging into his back. He grips Joseph's hip in his own abandon and thrusts into him as if he wanted to get lost into Joseph's body — and as Joseph lets out a sharp, hoarse noise of pleasure, Sebastian realizes he _does_.

He finds a pace of slow, deep pulses that have Joseph letting out heavy, low moans, gasping for breath everytime Sebastian pulls back. He drinks Joseph's increasingly deep and almost vulgar voice in kisses, and Joseph kisses him back, his longing turning into a need, turning into an ache, and his voice dissolves in a mess of pleas and prayers:

"Oh god," he would raspily whine, "oh please, Seb, _Seb_!"

Sebastian's rhythm dissolves with, or maybe into, Joseph's voice. He grabs the pillow in one hand, Joseph's hip in another, and his thrusts lose themselves in an ecstatic, delirious dance.  
With each push of his hips into Joseph's ass Sebastian can feel, and see, and hear the way pleasure devours him from the inside in the most divine of ways. Watching Joseph, and how his legs twitch, and how his eyes shut, and how his lips tremble, and how his nails dig into Sebastian's skin pull him to the edge of that indescribable bliss.

"You're _stunning_ ," he manages to say. His voice is breathless, hoarse, almost inelegant. Under Joseph's charmed, mirthful gaze, he continues. His voice pours out of his mouth as if he had locked the words in for too long. "You feel so good, you— you feel _incredible_."

He brings a hand to Joseph's cheek, cups his face, thumbs at his red, glistening lips, feels his tongue against his finger as the mouth falls open under his caress.

"You're so tight, you're _so fucking warm—_ "

He is wrecked by want — _want_ , a powerful thing, and yet in his own, Sebastian finds nothing but the desire to please Joseph, fill him, fulfill him, get him high on everything he has ever dared to dream of.

Almost as if he had read Sebastian's thoughts, Joseph brings his lips to Sebastian's. His teeth creep to his mouth and worry it a playful pink.  
In the way his voice trembles, yet moans an adoring, whetting litany of ' _come on, come on_ ', the way his nails graze Sebastian's skin with something akin to impish lust, the way Joseph pulls him closer, moves under, around, _for_ him, Sebastian finds the realization that Joseph, with his legs spread, lips parted, delighted eyes as Sebastian's breathing quickens, gets off to getting him off.  
Sebastian stumbles and trips between the overwhelming, exhilarating thought of the pleasure Joseph gives him, with his kisses and his bites and the warmth and tightness of his ass, and the pleasure Joseph _gives_ him, by taking what he gives.  
He slips his arms under Joseph's back and pulls him to his chest for an enraptured, euphoric kiss.  
Joseph moans in his mouth, first his name, then pleas, then curses, and he gives, and he takes in a same breath, in a same kiss, and Sebastian's pride and pleasure grow from Joseph's in the same reciprocated impulse.

Sebastian has no idea how they managed to keep going that long — is it Joseph's waiting, the decade of build-up that finally flooded the room? Is it the many years that seem like many more spent fearing intimacy finally crumbling down and covering them in gold? Is it this little _something_ that they didn't have before? Were they just always _that_ endurant but never had a good enough time to test it? At this point, they don't even think about it anymore — but that, too, is not going to last.

Each buck of Sebastian's hips against Joseph's ass becomes more erratic, each inhale becomes sharper. As this overwhelming feeling of pleasure makes the blood in their veins sing, each rock of Joseph's pelvis against Sebastian's thighs loses its strength as his curses fill the air.

"I'm— I'm gonna cum," Joseph says, voice barely a warm breath against Sebastian's lips. It's so tender, so transported and almost bashful in a way that it's the last push Sebastian could handle.

Joseph comes, and it's as messy as it was before. It spills between their chests in thick ropes that end up dripping down his hips and loins and between his legs, his nails dig into Sebastian's back, his mouth falls open as a last loud, breathless cry of pleasure leaves his lips. It is loud, deep, rough, so foreign to Sebastian's ears yet so, so _right_ that he follows Joseph immediately after.  
His voice is harsh, grating, his moan as he loses himself into Joseph's ass heavenly to Joseph's ears.  
Sebastian's hands find Joseph's heated cheeks and cradle them. His lips finding his brows, his nose, his eyelids, pepper small kisses on his skin so he doesn't miss any of his last moans. His thrusts get deeper, slower, his whole body pressed against Joseph's to help him ride the last waves of his orgasm, feeling him melt against and under him in his embrace. Sebastian's hips come to a halt.

 

          Joseph is still suspended at Sebastian's lips when he manages to catch his breath. He tastes the libation of his bliss at the fountain of his mouth, how it bathes them in these waters of elations so rare and precious. He tastes here too Sebastian's gentle reassurances, small compliments as they drip from Sebastian's lips just onto hips, still parted in ecstasy, and he licks them. He licks the drops of Sebastian's adoration like honey. Sebastian gently nudges him and he offers a kiss, he shares, he lets Sebastian taste this almost divine worship against his palate, his tongue, his teeth.  
This boundless release feels raw, carnal in the feeling of the flesh, and holy in the taste of saliva connecting their sore mouth.

"... I should pull out," Sebastian finally states. Joseph's chest feels a spark of lust again from how deep and hoarse his voice is.  
"We don't want to get stuck, do we?" Joseph chuckles, an exhausted hand coming to ruffle Sebastian's hair.  
"Imagine walking into work like this," Sebastian jokes, and Joseph lets out a frank chortle. "' _Hey guys, guess what we did!_ '," Sebastian hums, imitating a voice that isn't either of theirs but is supposed to be. Joseph's voice blurts in a bold and candid laughter.  
"' _Hey Andrea, I'm very sorry about your friend, but thank you for canceling the invitation, we had a very fun night_ '," Joseph banters too, imitating him, and Sebastian barks an uncontrollable fit of laughter at his turn.

They stay in silence, Sebastian laying his head against Joseph's chest, witnessing the last erratic heartbeats pounding against his ribcage before Joseph finally calms down.

"I _really_ need to pull out," he insists in a whisper.

 

          Watching his cock slip out of Joseph's ass, covered in the mix of lube and cum, is quite a surreal experience. As it drips between Joseph's buttocks and onto the towel, Sebastian grimaces.

"God, I really should have used a condom… I'm so sorry."  
"I'm the one who insisted that you came inside of me," Joseph chuckles at the memory. "I'll clean up, it's not that complicated."

Sebastian thoughtlessly caresses Joseph's thigh as he watches how he squirms lightly, seems to purr as he reaches between his legs.

"How are you feeling?" Sebastian asks, and his voice is low, lower than their breathing had previously been, in the room suddenly silent.  
"... Full," Joseph whispers back. Sebastian raises an eyebrow and Joseph adds: "My ass is full of cum, my heart is full of love, I am happy."

Sebastian almost chokes on his own saliva and Joseph jolts on his elbows to ask him what happened.

"That's just that, huh. You're very… blunt."  
"Did that shock you?" Joseph asks, and Sebastian can see the smirk toying at the corner of his lips.  
"A bit, I suppose. I've spent most of the time knowing you as this very proper, very respectable man, and know I don't even know if I'll be able to look at you with a straight face at work."

Joseph's smile withers and Sebastian promptly corrects himself :

"I don't mean that as in I won't be able to see you as a competent, qualified detective, rather as in… If a single sentence you ever say has the tiniest hint of sexual innuendo, I'm going to lose my shit."

Joseph yelps a laugh and Sebastian bows over him to steal a chaste kiss from his lips.

"We should _really_ clean ourselves up."  
"Do you need help standing up?"  
"Please."

And with that, Sebastian sweeps Joseph off the mattress and carries him, bridal style, to the bathroom.  
Sebastian can hear him uncontrollably laughs every time he sways a bit on a side.

 

          Joseph leans against him in the shower, cheek pressed to his shoulder. Sebastian's hands nestled themselves at the base of his nape, fingers against the bump of the vertebra subtly poking out as Joseph's head weights down, and in the hollow of his back, finding the now-familiar dimples. Joseph's arms are looped, almost thoughtlessly, against his waist.  
The water runs, warm monsoon rain, over their entwined bodies.  
They breathe, slow and in unison, the deep heaving of their chests like a dance old as time. Joseph buries his face against Sebastian's neck and lets himself weight even more into his soothing embrace.

Ecstasy wears down, washed down the drain. They emerge, exhausted, drained, and in the way they hold onto each other, as pure and as raw as the freshly-created sun.  
Joseph lets out a long groan of fatigue and Sebastian ruffles softly his wet hair, a chuckle making his throat sing.

"I feel like I didn't indulge enough in your little… _nipple_ thing," Sebastian whispers, voice muffled as his lips are pressed against Joseph's temple.  
"You'll have a lot of other times to make up for it," Joseph answers, and Sebastian catches the hints of playfulness in his worn voice.  
"Is that a teasing?" Sebastian chuckles.

Joseph's lips curl in a smile.

"It's a promise."

Bringing them back to the bedroom, Sebastian lays a naked Joseph atop the mattress, undoing the towel wrapped around his hips to spread it under his back. Picking a pair of clean underwear in the closet, Sebastian helps Joseph wriggle into the fabric.

"This is like… that time," Joseph whispers, making Sebastian glance up at him.

He finds a warm, slightly embarrassed recollection of the memory in the way his brown eyes lose themselves in the distance.

"When you hit your head in the bathtub and I had to lay you down like this to dress you up before I rushed us to the hospital, is that it?" Sebastian chuckles as Joseph's lips quirk in a bashful smile.  
"Yeah. I liked it," he admits. His voice is so small that Sebastian barely notices the way it cracks. "No, not hitting my head and almost losing consciousness," Joseph answers the confused gaze on Sebastian's face and the heavy curve of his eyebrow. "Just being… taken care of by you. I remember thinking I wouldn't mind you seeing me naked… In other circumstances, I mean."

Sebastian's eyes widen subtly, an awed blink making his hazel eyes glisten with gold. He watches the way Joseph hides his face under his crossed arms and sighs deeply.  
A playful smile makes the corners of Sebastian's lips twitch and he bows down, head drifting lower, closer to Joseph's crotch.  
A flick between his eyebrows stop him in his track and he lets yelps out an amused laugh.

" _Don't you dare_ ," Joseph scolds him, "we have just gotten cleaned up."

 

          Purring in Sebastian's arms, the blanket heavily weighing over their entwined bodies, Joseph stretches out of the crook of his neck, where he had nestled. Blinking once, slowly, he lets his lips graze over his partner's. His hands run nonchalant fingers under his chin, in the hollow of his jaw, over his cheeks.

"Tonight was incredible."

His voice is hushed, barely a warm wave against Sebastian's lips.

"Worth the wait?"  
"You have _no idea_."

Sebastian lets out a breathless laugh as Joseph nibbles inattentively at his lips.

"I still feel like it was a little… bland. For something you have waited almost ten years for."

Joseph lets out a snort.

"Seb, as much as I would have loved for you to pull out the whipped cream and the strawberries," he begins, offering an amused, kindly mocking but still so tender gaze to Sebastian's eyes, "coat and cover my nipples and my dick with it, I am more than happy with what you've given me tonight."

Sebastian looks at him, eyebrows subtly raised. He blinks once, then twice.

"... So you're into that kind of stuff?"

Joseph chokes on air and, trying to dig himself out of the hole he jumped right in, promptly blurts out :

"I said that without thinking! I just needed an example!"  
"No, now this is very interesting!" Sebastian hums and smiles as he cradles a red-cheeked Joseph in his arms. "Food play? Are you thinking of having me lick the whipped cream of your cock?"

Joseph lets out a sigh of resignation that trembles as a small, soundless laugh tingles in his tongue, and he buries his face into Sebastian's chest.

"Let's talk about another day," Joseph hums, and Sebastian can hear the exhaustion in his voice as his words stumble onto each other. "We need to sleep, now."  
"I'm very interested," Sebastian chuckles as he brushes a hand into Joseph's damp hair. "I'm not really into sweet stuff, but that could be fun."  
"We'll see, Sebastian," Joseph groans against Sebastian's chest, fatigue clouding his voice even if hints of hilarity still ring between his slurred words, "but…"

Sebastian raises an eyebrow, leans in to Joseph's lips to encourage him.  
Joseph's head pops out of his chest and a gaze languid, weary, yet still playful and adoring to the core finds his eye.

"But the next time we have sex, instead of eating whipped cream and strawberries, I'd rather you ate my ass."

The silence around them shatters as Sebastian's irresistible fit of laughter fills the room. Proud of his joke, Joseph allows himself a last little smirk as Sebastian pulls him in a vigorous embrace and rolls him on top of his chest to cover his face with kisses.

 

          Quiescence, at last.  
Time waltzes the room to the metronome of their even breathing. The silky sound of Sebastian's palm grazing up and down Joseph's back follows the ticks and the tocks of a distant clock.  
There is something heavenly in the way their legs entwine tonight, skin still singing with the bliss of kept promises, and the promise of many more. Sebastian offers a peck to Joseph's forehead when he gently bumps against him.

A noise, that barely makes Joseph open an eye, makes Sebastian jolt wide awake.  
It is the low grumble of hunger in Joseph's stomach and it has Sebastian yelp, promptly pulling them out of the bed: " ** _WE FORGOT ABOUT DINNER!_** "

 

 


	16. Ylang-Ylang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue of some sorts.

          Sebastian sat Joseph on his chair and frantically ran the kitchen. He looked and sought and turned the room upside down cooking a meal for two plates, and Joseph only sat, and laughed, not mocking in any way, heart filled with felicity at Sebastian's care. Sebastian stopped in his track as he heard him chuckle, and found the way he looked at him — warm, adoring.

Sebastian managed to find something for them to eat, found the dessert in fruits they were waiting to see ripe.  
Joseph eats pieces of peaches and apricots off Sebastian's hands, licks the nectar of his fingers and wrists. He laughs as Sebastian kisses clean the juice glistening on his lips, chuckles against his mouth:

"Will we ever have enough?"

And as to answer him, Sebastian offers a bit of mango between his lips that Joseph gladly dives onto to bite gleefully.

 

          Stomachs full, hearts fuller, Joseph and Sebastian buried themselves under the blankets again.  
Joseph is still chuckling gleefully, and Sebastian tries to scold him, his lips pulled in an irresistible smile. He locks his arms around Joseph, reveling in the way he curls up against him and hums.

"Sleep, now," he whispers as an order.

Joseph still giggles as he hears the way a laugh stumbles over the words.

 

          Calm, now. Quietude, lull, stillness. The night weighing heavier and heavier over them, cradling them in its comfortable arms like they cradle the other in theirs.  
Breathing, almost muted. Heartbeats, indivisible. The ruffling of the sheets.  
A thank-you, suspended in the air, unspoken.

The mattress welcomes the two men's exhaustion, the weight of their entwined bodies, the untold loving words, the desperate gratitude, the gut-wrenching adoration, oh, and more — more, so much more, that they could tell the other about for centuries and never reach the depth of.

Kisses and venerations at the altar of the other's mouth are left floating, pieces of a wreckage in the deep blue sea, in the warm atmosphere.  
There is the promise, in the tight embrace, in the lips still searching, in the low hum of a dizzy, exhausted pleasure, that they will wash ashore.

Night watches over them with the promise of a morning found in the other's arms — and many, many more.  
Dawn can wait.

 

          Sebastian watches Joseph wake up with a loud yawn and a long stretch. Dawn melts into day, the bright red sun turning gold. Joseph almost hits Sebastian in the face as he wriggles sleep away.  
Sebastian looks at Joseph.  
Joseph looks at Sebastian.  
Sebastian runs a sleepy hand over Joseph's neck and chest, finding under his fingertips the faint red left of hickeys.

"I like 'em," Joseph slurs from under heavy lids.  
"You do?"

Joseph rolls into his arms to press a close-mouthed, tight-lipped kiss.

"Trying to spare me your morning breath?" Sebastian chuckles, voice still heavy and hoarse with sleep and the last warmth of a muted ecstasy. "That's what real lovers do," he chuckles as Joseph nods.

Joseph curls up against him. Sebastian loops arms around his waist, gently pulling him closer.

"Can't wait to wake up next to you like this again," he whispers.

Joseph glances up at him.

"Can't wait for more of these blissful post-coital mornings," he continues, and Joseph's lips quirk in a sleepy smile. "Can't wait to bring you breakfast in bed as we're covered in hickeys. Can't wait to laze in bed for hours because none of us are able to walk." (This draws an amused chortle from Joseph's lips.)  
"Would you fuck me in the mornings?" Joseph asks, and his voice is still hushed, raucous with sleep. Sebastian finds the shyness in his eyes as he asks.  
"Would you want me to?" He asks at his turn, hearing Joseph's heartbeat growing louder in the quiet room. Joseph nods. "Then I gladly would."

Joseph's lightens as his lips curl in a wide smile, and he rolls on his back to stretch.

"That would make a little morning exercise," he jokes, and Sebastian jumps on him for a kiss.

Their loud, light laughs echo between the golden beams of light spilling like liquid gold into their room. Joseph takes upon himself to give Sebastian a brand new love bite.

 

          Joseph asked to go out. They walked to the farmer's market to find fruits, complimented the producers on their delicious peaches. They bagged groceries and walked into town. They dared to hold hands once.  
Joseph pulled them into a garden center and they walked out with busy arms.

A window, facing south, lets the delightfully warm air flow in.  
On the sill, plants are arranged in their pots — pansy, fuschia, salvia, in bulbs, in seeds, already in bloom.  
The small arrangement of this garden at the window pushes the gate open to the ones behind the fences of their ribs.

Joseph's hands find the familiar comfort of the dark soil, the obsessive control he once tried to exert over everything, including himself, melting into a tender care to see the lovely buds bloom.  
Sebastian's hands, that he sometimes still thinks seep the poison of an evil his hell implanted within, learn to care for the fragile green leaves.

They carefully lay out the pots on the windowsill, offering the petals to the gentle sun.  
Letting it gleam through the blinds of their ribs, shining a light on the abandoned neglected fields of their souls, they find, among the carnivorous plants and the weeds growing on bones, dreams, and daydreams and hopes they thought long lost, like snowdrops peeking at the spring sun.  
A watering can in a hand, the other's chin to pull him into a kiss in the other, Joseph and Sebastian learn, and will keep on learning, how to grow flowers from ashes.

 

 

**The End.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, this is it. this is where this fic, and this series, end.  
> thank you so much for sticking with me until the end. it was a long, long trip, but it's finally come to its destination. this is where Flowers from Ashes, and the series Changing Tides, end.  
> a lot of things happen between the moment i started this fic and the moment i finished it, which is probably why i'm so emotional now. in two weeks i'm going to move out of my childhood home, become relatively independent. i know most of you probably don't care, but it's a strange feeling the end of this fic brings me.
> 
> anyways. i hope it was enjoyable. i hope you didn't find too many mistakes, or the characters too OOC. thank you for sticking with me.  
> i am working on a post-TEW2 joseph/sebastian reunion fic, so this one's gonna be angsty. i also still want to write juli and tatiana's story, so... see y'all again in 6 months i suppose.
> 
> also, to the commentator this fic was dedicated to: if you read this, i'm happy you read until the end. i hope it was enjoyable.
> 
> peace, babes!


End file.
